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THE DIVINE COM

OF

DANTE ALIGHIERI

TRANSLATED BV

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

HELL

I

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

1892

Copyright, 1891,
By CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3fass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co,

To
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

E come sare' io senza lui corso ?

It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with
the memory of my friend and master from youth. I was
but a beginner in the study of the Divine Comedy when
I first had his incomjjarable aid in the understanding of
it. During the last year of his life he read the proofs
of this volume, to what great advantage to my work may
readily be conceived.

When, in the early summer of this year, the printing
of the Purgatory began, though illness made it an
exertion to him, he continued this act of friendship, and
did not cease till, at the fifth canto, he laid down the
pencil forever from his dear and honored hand.

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.

Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1 October, 1891.

The text followed in this translation is, in general, that of
Witte. In a few cases I have preferred the readings which the
more recent researches of the Rev. Dr. Edward Moore, of Oxford,
seem, to have established as correct.

CONTENTS.

CANTO I.

PAGE

Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill which
he begins to ascend ; he is hindered by three beasts ;
he turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to
guide him into the eternal world 1

CANTO II.

Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at the
outset. Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has
been sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven.
Dante casts off fear, and the poets proceed .... 6

CANTO III.

The gate of Hell. Virgil leads Dante in. — The pun-
ishment of the neither good nor bad. — Acheron, and
the sinners on its bank. — Charon. — Earthquake. —
Dante swoons 11

CANTO IV.

The further side of Acheron. Virgil leads Dante into
Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits

iv CONTENTS.

of those who lived virtuously but without Christian-
ity. — Greeting of Virgil by his fellow poets. — They
enter a castle, where are the shades of ancient wor-
thies. Virgil and Dante depart 16

CANTO V.

The Second Circle : Carnal sinners. — Minos. — Shades
renowned of old. — Francesca da Rimini 21

CANTO VI.

The Third Circle : the Gluttonous. — Cerberus. —
Ciacco 26

CANTO VII.

The Fourth Circle : the Avaricious and the Prodigal. —

Pluto. — Fortune.
The Styx. — The Fifth Circle : the Wrathful and the

Sullen 31

CANTO VIII.

The Fifth Circle. — Phlegyas and his boat. — Passage
of the Styx. — Filippo Argenti. — The City of Dis.
— The demons refuse entrance to the poets .... 36

CANTO IX.

The City of Dis. — Erichtho. — The Three Furies. —
The Heavenly Messenger. — The Sixth Circle : Here-
siarchs 41

CONTENTS.

CANTO X.

The Sixth Circle : Heresiarchs. — Farlnata degli Uberti.
— Cavalcante Cavalcanti. — Frederick II 46

CANTO XI.

The Sixth Circle : Heretics. — Tomb of Pope Anastasius.
— Discourse of Virgil on the divisions of the lower
Hell

51

CANTO XII.

First round of the Seventh Circle : those who do vio-
lence to others. — Tyrants and Homicides. — The
Minotaur. — The Centaurs. — Chiron. — Nessus. —
The River of Boiling Blood, and the Sinners in it . . 56

CANTO XIII.

Second round of the Seventh Circle : those who have
done violence to themselves and to their goods. — The
Wood of Self-murderers. — The Harpies. — Pier deUa
Vigne. — Lano of Siena and others . ^1

CANTO XIV.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : those who have
done violence to God. — The Burning Sand. — Capa-
neus. — Figure of the Old Man in Crete. —The Riv-
ers of Hell

vi CONTENTS.

CANTO XV.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : those who have
done violence to Nature. — Brunetto Latini. — Pro-
phecies of misfortune to Dante 73

CANTO XVI.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : those who have
done violence to Nature. — Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio
Aldobrandi and Jacopo Rusticucci. — The roar of
Phlegethon as it pours downward. — The cord thrown
into the abyss 79

CANTO XVII.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : those who have
done violence to Art. — Geryon. — The Usurers. —
Descent to the Eighth Circle 85

CANTO XVIII.

Eighth Circle : the first pit : Panders and Seducers. —

Venedico Caccianimico. — Jason. — Second pit : false
flatterers. — Alessio Interminei. — Thais 91

CANTO XIX.

Eighth Circle : third pit : Simonists. — Pope Nicholas
III 97

CANTO XX.

Eighth Circle : fourth pit : Diviners, Soothsayers, and
Magicians. — Amphiaraus. — Tiresias. — Aruns. —
Manto. — Eurypylus. — Michael Scott. — Asolente . 103

CONTENTS. vii

CANTO XXI.

Eighth Circle : fifth pit : Barrators. — A magistrate of
Lucca. — The Malebranche. — Parley with them . . 109

CANTO XXII.

Eighth Circle : fifth pit : Barrators. — Ciampolo of Na-
varre. — Brother Gomita. — Michael Zanche. — Fray
of the Malebranche 115

CANTO XXIII.

Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit. — The sixth
pit : Hypocrites. — The Jovial Friars. — Caiaphas. —
Annas. — Frate Catalano 121

CANTO XXIV.

Eighth Circle. The poets climb from the sixth pit. —
Seventh pit : Fraudulent Thieves. — Vanui Fucci. —
Prophecy of calamity to Dante 127

CANTO XXV.

Eighth Circle : seventh pit : Fraudulent Thieves. — Ca-
cus. — Agnello Brunelleschi and others .... 133

CANTO XXVI.

Eighth Circle : eighth pit : Fraudulent Counsellors. —
Ulysses and Diomed 139

viii CONTENTS.

CANTO XXVII.

Eighth Circle : eighth pit : Fraudulent Counsellors. —
Guido da Montefeltro 145

CANTO XXVIII.

Eighth Circle : ninth pit : Sowers of discord and schism.
— Mahomet and Ali. — Fra Dolcino. — Pier da Medi-
cina. — Curio. — Mosca. — Bertran de Born . . . 151

CANTO XXIX.

Eighth Circle : ninth pit. — Geri del Bello. — Tenth pit :
Falsifiers of all sorts. — Griffolino of Arezzo. — Ca-
pocchio 157

CANTO XXX.

Eighth Circle : tenth pit : Falsifiers of all sorts. — Myr-
rha. — Gianni Schicchi. — Master Adam. — Sinon of
Troy 162

CANTO XXXI.

The Giants around the Eighth Circle. — Nimrod. — Ephi-
altes. — Antaeus sets the Poets down in the Ninth
Circle 168

CANTO XXXII.

Ninth Circle : Traitors. First ring : Caina. — Counts of
Mangona. — Camicion de' Pazzi. — Second ring : An-
tenora. — Bocca degli Abati. — Buoso da Duera. —
Count Ugolino 175

CONTENTS. ix

CANTO XXXIIL

Ninth Circle : Traitors. Second ring : Antenora. —
Count Ugolino. — Third ring : Ptolonirea. — Brother
Alberigo. — Branca d' Oria 181

CANTO XXXIV.

Ninth Circle : Traitors. Fourth ring : Judecca. — Luci-
fer. — Judas, Brutus and Cassius. — Centre of the
universe. — Passage from Hell. — Ascent to the sur-
face of the Southern Hemisphere 188

INTRODUCTION.

So many versions of the Divine Comedy exist in
English that a new one might well seem needless.
But most of these translations are in verse, and
the intellectual temper of our time is impatient of
a transmutation in which substance is sacrificed for
form's sake, and the new form is itself different
from the original. The conditions of verse in dif-
ferent languages vary so widely as to make any
versified translation of a poem but an imperfect
reproduction of the archetype. It is like an im-
perfect mirror that renders but a partial likeness,
in which essential features are blurred or distorted.
Dante himself, the first modern critic, declared
that " nothing harmonized by a musical bond can
be transmuted from its own speech without losing
all its sweetness and harmony," and every fresh
attempt at translation affords a new proof of the
truth of his assertion. Each language exhibits
its own special genius in its poetic forms. Even
when they are closely similar in rhythmical method
their poetic effect is essentially different, their

xii INTRODUCTION.

individuality is distinct. The hexameter of the
Iliad is not the hexameter of the ^neid. And
if this be the case in respect to related forms, it is
even more obvious in respect to forms peculiar to
one language, like the terza rima of the Italian,
for which it is impossible to find a satisfactory
equivalent in another tongue.

If, then, the attempt be vain to reproduce the
form or to represent its effect in a translation, yet
the substance of a poem may have such worth that
it deserves to be known by readers who must read
it in their own tongue or not at all. In this case
the aim of the translator should be to render the
substance fully, exactly, and with as close a cor-
respondence to the tone and style of the original
as is possible between prose and poetry. Of the
charm, of the power of the poem such a transla-
tion can give but an inadequate suggestion ; the
musical bond was of its essence, and the loss of
the musical bond is the loss of the beauty to which
form and substance mutually contributed, and in
which they were both alike harmonized and sub-
limated. The rhythmic life of the original is its
vital spirit, and the translation losing this vital
spirit is at best as the dull plaster cast to the liv-
ino- marble or the breathinsf bronze. The intel-
lectual substance is there ; and if the work be
good, something of the emotional quality may be

INTRODUCTION. xiii

conveyed ; the imagination may mould the prose
as it moulded the verse, — but, after all, "trans-
lations are but as turn-coated things at best," as
Howell said in one of his Familiar Letters.

No poem in any tongue is more informed with
rhythmic life than the Divine Comedy. And
yet, such is its extraordinary distinction, no jjoeni
has an intellectual and emotional substance more
independent of its metrical form. Its complex
structure, its elaborate measure and rhyme, highly
artificial as they are, are so mastered by the genius
of the i^oet as to become the most natural expres-
sion of the spirit by which the poem is inspired ;
while at the same time the thought and sentiment
embodied in the verse is of such import, and the
narrative of such interest, that they do not lose
their worth when expressed in the prose of another
tongue ; they still have power to quicken imagina-
tion, and to evoke syuipathy.

In English there is an excellent prose transla-
tion of the Inferno., by Dr. John Carlyle, a man
well known to the reader of his brother's Corre-
spondence. It was published forty years ago, but
it is still contemporaneous enough in style to an-
swer every need, and had Dr. Carlyle made a ver-
sion of the whole poem I should hardly have cared
to attempt a new one. In my translation of the
Inferno I am often Dr. Carlyle's debtor. His

XIV INTRODUCTION.

conception of what a translation should be is very
much the same as my own. Of the Purgatorio
there is a prose version which has excellent quali-
ties, by Mr. W. S. Dugdale. Another version of
great merit, of both the Purgatorio and Paradiso^
is that of Mr. A. J. Butler. It is accompanied by
a scholarly and valuable comment, and I owe much
to Mr. Butler's work. But through what seems to
me occasional excess of literal fidelity his English
is now and then somewhat crabbed. " He overacts
the office of an interpreter," I cite again from
Howell, " who doth enslave himself too strictly to
words or phrases. One may be so over-punctual in
words that he may mar the matter."

I have tried to be as literal in my translation as
was consistent with good English, and to render
Dante's own words in words as nearly correspond-
ent to them as the difference in the languages
would permit. But it is to be remembered that
the familiar uses and subtle associations which
give to words their full meaning are never abso-
lutely the same in two languages. Love in Eng-
lish not only sounds but is different from amor
in Latin, or amove in Italian. Even the most
felicitous prose translation must fail therefore at
times to afford the entire and precise meaning of
the original.

Moreover, there are difficulties in Dante's poem

INTRODUCTION. xv

for Italians, and there are clifficnlties in tlie trans-
lation for English readers. These, where it seemed
needful, I have endeavored to explain in brief foot-
notes. But I have desired to avoid distracting the
attention of the reader from the narrative, and
have mainly left the understanding of it to his
good sense and perspicacity. The clearness of
Dante's imaginative vision is so complete, and the
character of his narration of it so direct and sim-
ple, that the difficulties in understanding his inten-
tion are comparatively few.

It is a noticeable fact that in by far the greater
number of passages where a doubt in regard to
the interpretation exists, the obscurity lies in the
rhyme-word. For with all the abundant resources
of the Italian tongue in rhyme, and with all
Dante's mastery of them, the truth still is that his
triple rhyme often compelled him to exact from
words such service as they did not naturally ren-
der and as no other poet had required of them.
The compiler of the Ottimo Comento records, in
an often-cited passage, that "I, the writer, heard
Dante say that never a rhyme had led him to say
other than he would, but that many a time and oft
he had made words say for liim what they were
not wont to express for other poets." The sen-
tence has a double truth, for it indicates not only
Dante's incomparable power to compel words to

xvi INTRODUCTION.

give out their full meaning, but also his invention
of new uses for them, his employment of them in
unusual significations or in forms hardly elsewhere
to be found. These devices occasionally interfere
with the limpid flow of his diction, but the difficul-
ties of interpretation to which they give rise serve
rather to mark the prevailing clearness and sim-
plicity of his expression than seriously to impede
its easy and unperplexed current. There are few
sentences in the Divina Commedia in which a diffi-
culty is occasioned by lack of definiteness of thought
or distinctness of image.

A far deeper-lying and more pervading source
of imperfect comprehension of the poem than any
verbal difficulty exists in the double or triple
meaninof that runs throuoh it. The narrative of
the poet's spiritual journey is so vivid and con-
sistent that it has all the reality of an account of
an actual experience ; but within and beneath runs
a stream of allegory not less consistent and hardly
less continuous than the narrative itself. To the
illustration and carrying out of this interior mean-
ing even the minutest details of external incident
are made to contribute, with an appropriateness
of significance, and with a freedom from forced
interpretation or artificiality of construction such
as no other writer of allegory has succeeded in
attaining. The poem may be read with interest

IN TR OD UCTION. X vii

as a record of experience without attention to Its
inner meaning, but its full interest is only felt
when this inner meaning is traced, and the moral
significance of the incidents of the story ai^pre-
hended by the alert intelligence. The allegory
is the soul of the poem, but like the soul within
the body It does not show itself in independent
existence. It is, in scholastic phrase, the form of
the body, giving to it its special individuality.

Thus in order truly to understand and rightly
appreciate the poem the reader must follow its
course with a double intelligence. " Taken lit-
erally," as Dante declares in his Letter to Can
Grande, " the subject is the state of the soul after
death, simply considered. But, allegorically taken,
its subject is man, according as by his good or ill
deserts he renders himself liable to the reward or
punishment of Justice." It is the allegory of
human life ; and not of human life as an abstrac-
tion, but of the individual life; and herein, as
Mr. Lowell, whose phrase I borrow, has said, " lie
its profound meaning and its permanent force." ^
And herein too He its perennial freshness of in-
terest, and the actuality which makes it contem-

^ Mr. Lowell's essay on Dante makes other writing about the
poet or the poem seem ineffectual and superfluous. I must as-
sume that it will be familiar to the readers of my version, at least
to those among them who desire truly to understand the Divine
Comedy.

xviii INTRODUCTION.

poraneous with every successive generation. The
increase of knowledge, the loss o£ belief in doc-
trines that were fundamental in Dante's creed, the
changes in the order of society, the new thoughts
of the world, have not lessened the moral import
of the poem, any more than they have lessened its
excellence as a work of art. Its real substance is
as independent as its artistic beauty, of science,
of creed, and of institutions. Human nature has
not changed ; the motives of action are the same,
thouo-h their relative force and the desires and
ideals by which they are inspired vary from gen-
eration to generation. And thus it is that the
moral judgments of life framed by a great poet
whose imagination penetrates to the core of things,
and who, from his very nature as poet, conceives
and sets forth the issues of life not in a treatise of
abstract morality, but by means of sensible types
and images, never lose interest, and have a per-
petual contemporaneousness. They deal with the
permanent and unalterable elements of the soul of
man.

The scene of the poem is the spiritual world, of
which we are members even while still denizens
in the world of time. In the spiritual world the
results of sin or perverted love, and of virtue or
right love, in this life of probation, are manifest.
The life to come is but the fulfilment of the life

IN TR OD UCTION. xix

that now is. This is the truth that Dante sought
to enforce. The allegory in which he cloaked it
is of a character that separates the Divine Comedy
from all other works of siuiilar intent. In The
PUgrinis Progress^ for example, the personages
introduced are mere simulacra of men and women,
the types of moral qualities or religious disposi-
tions. They are abstractions which the genius of
Bunj^an fails to inform wath vitality sufficient to
kindle the imagination of the reader with a sense
of their actual, living and breathing existence.
But in the Divine Comedy the personages are all
from real life, they are men and women with their
natural passions and emotions, and they are under-
going an actual experience. The allegory consists
in making their characters and their fates, what
all human characters and fates really are, the
types and images of spiritual law. Virgil and
Beatrice, whose nature as depicted in the poem
makes nearest approach to purely abstract and
typical existence, are always consistently presented
as living individuals, exalted indeed in wisdom and
power, but with hardly less definite and concrete
humanity than that of Dante himself.

The scheme of the created Universe held by the
Christians of the Middle Ages was comparatively
simple, and so definite that Dante, in accepting it
in its main features without modification, was pro-

XX IN TE OD UCTION.

vided with tlie limited stage that was requisite for
his design, and of which the general disposition
was familiar to all his readers. The three spirit-
ual realms had their local bounds marked out as
clearly as those of the earth itself. Their cosmo-
graphy was but an extension of the largely hypo-
thetical geography of the time.

The Earth was the centre of the Universe, and
its northern hemisphere was the abode of man.
At the middle point of this hemisphere stood
Jerusalem, equidistant from the Pillars of Her-
cules on the West, and the Ganges on the East.

Within the body of this hemisphere was Hell,
shaped as a vast cone, of which the apex was the
centre of the globe ; and here, according to Dante,
was the seat of Lucifer. The concave of Hell
had been formed by his fall, when a portion of
the solid earth, through fear of him, ran back to
the southern uninhabited hemisphere, and formed
there, directly antipodal to Jerusalem, the moun-
tain of Purgatory which rose from the waste of
waters that covered this half of the globe. Pur-
gatory was shaped as a cone, of similar dimensions
to that of Hell, and at its summit was the Terres-
trial Paradise.

Immediately surrounding the atmosphere of the
Earth was the sphere of elemental fire. Around
this was the Heaven of the Moon, and encircling

IN TEODUC TION. xxi

this, in order, were the Heavens of Mercury,
Yenus, the Sun, Mars, Jove, Saturn, the Fixed
Stars, and the Crystalline or first moving Heaven.
These nine concentric Heavens revolved continu-
ally around the Earth, and in proportion to their
distance from it was the greater swiftness of each.
Encircling all was the Empyrean, increate, incor-
poreal, motionless, unbounded in time or S2:>ace,
the proper seat of God, the home of the Angels,
the abode of the Elect.

The Angelic Hierarchy consisted of nine orders,
corresponding to the nine moving Heavens. Their
blessedness and the swiftness of the motion with
which in unending delight they circled around
God were in proportion to their nearness to Him,
— first the Seraphs, then the Cherubs, Thrones,
Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Princes, Archan-
gels, and Angels. Through them,, under the gen-
eral name of Intelligences, the Divine influence
was transmitted to the Heavens, giving to them
their circular motion, which was the expression of
their longing to be united with the source of their
creation. The Heavens in their turn streamed
down upon the Earth the Divine influence thus
distributed among them, in varying proportion
and power, producing divers effects in the genera-
tion and corruption of material things, and in the
dispositions and the lives of men.

xxii INTRODUCTION.

Such was tlie general scheme of the Universe.
The intention of Gocl in its creation was to com-
municate of his own perfection to the creatures
endowed with souls, that is, to men and to angels,
and the proper end of every such creature was to
seek its own perfection in likeness to the Divine.
This end was attained through that knowledge of
God of which the soul was capable, and through
love which was in proportion to knowledge. Virtue
depended on the free will of man ; it was the good
use of that will directed to a right object of love.
Two lights were given to the soul for guidance
of the will : the light of reason for natural things
and for the direction of the will to moral virtue ;
the light of grace for things supernatural, and for
the direction of the will to spiritual virtue. Sin
was the opposite of virtue, the choice by the will
of false objects of love ; it involved the misuse
of reason, and the absence of grace. As the end
of virtue was blessedness, so the end of sin was
misery.

The corner-stone of Dante's moral system was
the Freedom of the Will ; in other words, the right
of private judgment with the condition of account-
ability. This is the liberty which Dante, that is
man, goes seeking in his journey through the spir-
itual world. This liberty is to be attained through
the right use of reason, illuminated by Divine

IN TR OD UCTION. xxiii

Grace , it consists in the perfect accord of the will
of man with the will of God.

With this view of the nature and end of man
Dante's conception of the history of the race could
not be other than that its course was providen-
tially ordered. The fall of man had made him a
just object of the vengeance of God ; but the elect
were to be redeemed, and for their redemjition the
history of the world from the beginning was di-
rected. Not only in his dealings with the Jews, but
in his dealings with the heathen was God preparing
for the reconciliation of man, to be finally accom-
plished in his sacrifice of Himself for them. The
Roman Empire was foreordained and established
for this end. It was to prepare the way for the
establishment of the Roman Church. It w^as the
appointed instrument for the political government
of men. Empire and Church w^ere alike divine
institutions for the guidance of man on earth.

The aim of Dante in the Divine Comedy was
to set forth these truths in such wise as to affect
the imaginations and touch the hearts of men, so
that they should turn to righteousness. His con-
viction of these truths was no mere matter of be-
lief ; it had the ardor and certainty of faith. They
had appeared to him in all their fulness as a reve-
lation of the Divine wisdom. It was his work as
poet, as poet with a divine commission, to make

xxiv INTRODUCTION.

this revelation known. His work was a work of
faith ; it was sacred ; to it both Heaven and Earth
had set their hands.

To this work, as I have said, the definiteness
and the limits of the generally accepted theory of
the Universe gave the required frame. The very
narrowness of this scheme made Dante's design
practicable. He had had the experience of a man
on earth. He had been lured by false objects of
desire from the pursuit of the true good. But Di-
vine Grace, in the form of Beatrice, who had of
old on earth led him aright, now intervened and
sent to his aid Virgil, who, as the type of Human
Reason, should bring him safe through Hell, show-
ing to him the eternal consequences of sin, and
then should conduct him, penitent, up the height
of Purgatory, till on its summit, in the Earthly
Paradise, Beatrice should appear once more to him.
Thence she, as the type of that knowledge through
which comes the love of God, should lead him,
through the Heavens up to the Emj)yrean, to the
consummation of his course in the actual vision of
God.

AIDS TO THE STUDY OF THE DIVINE

COMEDY.

The Essay by Mr. Lowell, to wliich I have
already referred QDante, Lowell's Prose Works,
vol. iv.) is the best introduction to the study of
the poem. It should be read and re-read.

Dante, an essay by the late Dean Church, is the
work of a learned and sympathetic scholar, and is
an excellent treatise on the life, times, and work
of the poet.

The Notes and Illustrations that accompany Mr.
Longfellow's translation of the Divine Comedy
form an admirable body of comment on the poem.

The Rev. Dr. Edward Moore's little volume, on
The Time- References in the Divina Commedia
(London, 1887), is of great valvie in making the
progress of Dante's journey clear, and in show-
ing Dante's scrupulous consistency of statement.
Dr. Moore's more recent work. Contributions to
the Textual Criticism of the Divina Commedia
(Cambridge, 1889), is to be warmly commended to
the advanced student.

These sources of information are enough for the
mere English reader. But one who desires to
make himself a thorough master of the poem.

xxvi AIDS IN STUDYING THE DIVINE COMEDY.

must turn to foreign sources of instruction : to
Carl Witte's invaluable Dante^For seining en (2
vols. Halle, 1889) ; to the comment, especially that
on the Parcfdlso, which accompanies the German
translation of the Divine Comedy by Philalethes,
tlie late King John of Saxony ; to Bartoli's life
of Dante in his Storia della Letteratnra Italiana
(Firenze, 1878 and subsequent years), and to Scar-
tazzini's Prolegomeni della Divina Conwiedia
(Leipzig, 1890). The fourteenth century Com-
ments, especially those of Boccaccio, of Buti, and of
Benvenuto da Imola, are indispensable to one who
would understand the poem as it was understood
by Dante's immediate contemporaries and succes-
sors. It is from them and from the Chronicle of
Dante's contemporary and fellow-citizen, Giovanni
Viilani, that our knowledge concerning many of
the personages mentioned in the Poem is derived.

In respect to the theology and general doctrine
of the Poem, the Sinnma Theologlca of St. Thomas
Aquinas is the main source from which Dante him-
self drew.

Of editions of the Divina Commedia in Italian,
either that of Andreoli, or of Bianchi, or of Frati-
celli, each in one volume, may be recommended to
the beainner. Scartazzini's edition in three vol-
umes is the best, in spite of some serious defects,
for the deeper student.

HELL.

CANTO I.

Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill which
he begins to ascend ; he is hindered by three beasts ; he
turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him
into the eternal world.

Midway upon the road of our life I found my-
self within a dark wood, for the right way had
been missed. Ah ! how hard a thing it is to tell
what this wild and rough and dense wood was,
which in thousfht renews the fear ! So bitter is it
that death is little more. But in order to treat of
the good that there I found, I will tell of the other
thin Of s that I have seen there. I cannot well re-
count how I entered it, so full was I of slumber
at that point where I abandoned the true way.
But after I had arrived at the foot of a hill, where
that valley ended which had pierced my heart with
fear, I looked on high, and saw its shoulders
clothed already with the rays of the planet ^ that
leadeth men aright along every path. Then was

1 The sun, a planet according" to the Ptolemaic system.

2 HELL.

the fear a little quieted which in the lake of my
heart had lasted through the night that I passed
so piteously. And even as one who with spent
breath, issued out of the sea upon the shore, turns
to the perilous water and gazes, so did my soul,
which still was flying, turn back to look again
upon the pass which never had a living person
left.

After I had rested a little my weary body I took
my way again along the desert slope, so that the
firm foot was always the lower. And lo ! almost
at the beginning of the steep a she-leopard, light
and very nimble, which was covered witli a spotted
coat. And she did not move from before my face,
nay, rather hindered so my road that to return I
oftentimes had turned.

The time was at the beginning of the morning,
and the Sun was mounting upward with those stars
that were with him when Love Divine first set in
motion those beautiful things ; ^ so that the hour
of the time and the sweet season were occasion
of good hope to me concerning that wild beast with
the dappled skin. But not so that the sight which
appeared to me of a lion did not give me fear. He
seemed to be coming against me, with head high
and with ravening hunger, so that it seemed that

^ According to old tradition the spring was the season of the
creation.

CANTO I. 3

the air was affrighted at him. And a she-wolf,^
who with all cravings seemed laden in her meagre-
ness, and already had made many folk to live for-
lorn, — she caused me so much heaviness, with the
fear that came from sight of her, that I lost hope
of the height. And such as he is who gaineth will-
ingly, and the time arrives that makes him lose,
who in all his thoughts weeps and is sad, — such
made me the beast without repose that, coming on
against me, little by little was pushing me back
thither where the Sun is silent.

While I was falling back to the low jDlace, be-
fore mine eyes appeared one who through long
silence seemed hoarse. When I saw him in the
great desert, " Have pity on me ! " I cried to him,
" whatso thou art, or shade or real man." He an-
swered me : " Not man ; man once I was, and my
parents were Lombards, and Mantuans by country
both. I was born sub Julio, though late, and I
lived at Rome under the good Augustus, in the
time of the false and lying gods. Poet was I, and
sang of that just son of Anchises who came from
Troy after proud llion had been burned. But
thou, why returnest thou to so great annoy ? Why
dost thou not ascend the delectable mountain
which is the source and cause of every joy ? "

1 These three beasts correspond to the triple di\asion of sins into
those of incontinence, of violence, and of fraud. See Canto XI.

4 HELL.

" Art thou then that Virgil and that fount which
poureth forth so large a stream of speech?" re-
plied I to him with bashful front : '' O honor and
light of the other poets ! may the long zeal avail
me, and the great love, which have made me search
thy volume ! Thou art my master and my author ;
thou alone art he from whom I took the fair style
that hath done me honor. Behold the beast because
of which I turned ; help me against her, famous
sage, for she makes my veins and pulses tremble."
" Thee it behoves to hold another course," he re-
plied, when he saw me weeping, " if thou wishest to
escape from this savage place ; for this beast, be-
cause of which thou criest out, lets not any one pass
along her way, but so hinders him that she kills
him ; and she has a nature so malign and evil that
she never sates her greedy will, and after food is
hungrier than before. Many are the animals with
which she wives, and there shall be more yet, till
the hound ^ shall come that will make her die of
grief. He shall not feed on land or goods, but wis-
dom and love and valor, and his birthplace shall be
'tween Feltro and Feltro. Of that humble 2 Italy

1 0£ -whom the hound is the symbol, and to -whom Dante looked
for the deliverance of Italy from the discords and misride that
made her wretched, is still matter of doubt, after centuries of
controversy.

- Fallen, humiliated.

CANTO I. 5

hhall he be the salvation, for which the virgin C:;-
niilla (lied, and Eur^alus, Turnus and Nisus of their
wounds. He shall hunt her through every town
till he shall have set her back in hell, there whence
envy first sent her forth. Wherefore I think and
deem it for thy best that thou follow me, and I
will be thy guide, and will lead thee hence through
the eternal place where thou shalt hear the despair-
ing shrieks of those ancient spirits woeful who cry
out each one for the second death. And then thou
shalt see those who are contented in the fire, be-
cause they hope to come, whene'er it may be, to
the blessed folk ; to whom thereafter if tkou wilt
ascend a soul there shall be more worthy than I
for that. With her I will leave thee at my depar-
ture ; for that Emperor who reigneth thereabove,
because I was rebellious to His law, wills not that
into His city any one should come through me.
In all parts He governs and there He reigns : there
is His city and His lofty seat. O happy he whom
thereto He elects ! " And I to him, " Poet, I be-
seech thee by that God whom thou didst not know,
in order that I may escape this ill and worse, that
thou lead me thither where thou now hast said, so
that I may see the gate of St. Peter, and those
whom thou makest so afflicted."

Then he moved on, and I behind him kept.

CANTO II.

Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at the
outset. Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has been
sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven. Dante casts
off fear, and the poets proceed.

The day was going, and the dusky air was tak-
ing tke living things that are on earth from their
fatigues, and I alone was preparing to sustain the
war alike of the road, and of the woe which the
mind that erreth not shall retrace. O Muses, O
lofty genius, now assist me ! O mind that didst
inscribe that which I saw, here shall thy nobility
appear ! I began : —

" Poet, that guidest me, consider my virtue, if it
is sufficient, ere to the deep pass thou trustest me.
Thou sayest that the parent of Silvius while still
corruptible went to the immortal world and was
there in the body. Wherefore if the Adversary of
every ill was then courteous, thinking on the high
effect that should proceed from him, and on the
Who and the What,^ it seemeth not unmeet to the
man of understanding ; for in the empyreal heaven
he had been chosen for father of revered Home and

1 Who he was, and what should result.

CANTO 11. 7

of her empire ; both which (to say truth indeed)
were ordained for the holy place where the suc-
cessor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through
this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he
learned tilings which were the cause of his victory
and of the papal mantle. Afterward the Chosen
Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to tliat
faith which is the beginning of the way of salva-
tion. But I, why go I thither ? or who concedes
it ? I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul ; me worthy ^
of this, neither I nor others think ; wherefore if I
give myself up to go, I fear lest the going may be
mad. Thou art wise, thou understandest better
than I speak."

• And as is he who un wills what he willed, and
because of new thoughts changes his design, so' that
from undertaking he quite withdraws, such I be-
came on that dark hillside, because ih thinking I
brought the enterprise to nought that had been so
hasty in the undertaking.

" If I have rightly understood thy speech," re-
plied that shade of the magnanimous one, "thy
soul is hurt by cowardice, which oftentimes encum- /
bereth a man so that it turns him back from hon-
orable enterprise, as false sight doth the beast when
it is growing dusk. In order that thou loose thee
from this fear I will tell thee wherefore I have
come, and what I heard at the first moment that I

8 HELL,

grieved for thee. I was among those who are sus-
pended,^ and a Lady called me, so blessed and
beautiful that I besought her to command. Her
eyes were more lucent than the star, and she began
to speak to me sweet and low, with angelic voice,
in her own tongue : ' O courteous Mantuan soul,
of whom the fame yet lasteth in the world, and
shall last so long as the world endureth ! a friend
of mine and not of fortune upon the desert hill-
side is so hindered on his road that he has turned
for fear, and I am afraid, through that which I have
heard of him in heaven, lest already he be so astray
that I may have risen late to his succor. Now
do thou move, and with thy speech ornate, and with
whatever is needful for his deliverance, assist him
so that I may be consoled for him. I am Beatrice
who make thee go. I come from a place whither I
desire to return. Love moved me, and makes me
speak. When I shall be before my Lord, I will
commend thee often unto Him.' Then she was
silent, and thereon I began : ' O Lady of Virtue,
thpu alone through whom the human race surpass-
eth all contained within that heaven which hath
the smallest circles ! ^ so pleasing unto me is thy
command that to obey it, were it already done,
were slow to me. Thou hast no need further to

^ In Limbo, neither in Hell nor Heaven.

2 The heaven of the moon, nearest to the earth.

i^

CANTO II.

open unto me thy will ; but tell me the cause why
thou* guardest not thyself from descending down
here into this centre, from the ample place whither
thou art on fire to return.' ' Since thou wishest to
know so inwardly, I will tell thee briefly,' she re-
plied to me, ' wherefore I fear not to come here
within. One ought to fear those things only that
have power of doing harm, the others not, for they
are not dreadful. I am made by God, thanks be
to Him, such that your misery toucheth me not,
nor doth the flame of this burning assail me. A
gentle Lady ^ is in heaven who hath pity for this
hindrance whereto I send thee, so that stern judg-
ment there above she breaketh. She summoned
Lucia in her request, and said, " Thy faithfid one
now hath need of thee, and unto thee I commend
him." Lucia, the foe of every cruel one, rose and
came to the place where I was, seated with the an-
cient Eachel. She said, " Beatrice, true praise of
God, why dost thou not succor him who so loved
thee that for thee he came forth from the vulgar
throng ? Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint ?
Dost thou not see the death that combats him be-
side the stream wherefrom the sea hath no vaunt ? '*
In the world never were persons swift to seek
their good, and to fly their harm, as I, after these
words were uttered, came here below, from my

1 The Virgin.

10 HELL.

blessed seat, putting my trust in thy upright speech,
which honors thee and them who have heard* it.'
After she had said this to me, weeping she turned
her lucent eyes, whereby she made me more speedy
in coming. And I came to thee as she willed.
Thee have I delivered from that wild beast that
took from thee the short ascent of the beautiful
mountain. What is it then? Why, why dost
thou hold back? why dost thou harbor such cow-
ardice in thy heart ? why hast thou not daring and
boldness, since three blessed Ladies care for thee
in the court of Heaven, and my speech pledges
thee such good ? "

As flowerets, bent and closed by the chill of
night, after the sun shines on them straighten
themselves all open on their stem, so I became with
my weak virtue, and such good daring hastened to
my heart that I began like one enfranchised : '' Oh
compassionate she who succored me ! and thou cour-
teous who didst speedily obey the true words that
she addressed to thee ! Thou by thy words hast so
disposed my heart with desire of going, that I have
returned unto my first intent. Go on now, for one
sole will is in both : Thou Leader, thou Lord, and
thou Master." Thus I said to him ; and when he
had moved on, I entered along the deep and savage
road.

CANTO III.

The gate of Hell. Virgil leads Dante in. The punishment
of the neither good nor bad. Acheron, and the sinners on
its bank. Charon. Earthquake. Dante swoons.

" Through me is the way into the woeful city ;
through me is the way into eternal woe ; through
me is the way among the lost people. Justice
moved my high creator : the divine Power, the
supreme Wisdom and the primal Love made me.
Before me were no things created, unless eternal,
and I eternal last. Leave every hope, ye who
enter I "

These words of color obscure I saw written at
the top of a gate ; whereat I, " Master, their mean-
ing is dire to me."

And he to me, like one who knew, " Here it
behoves to leave every fear ; it behoves that all
cowardice should here be dead. We have come to
the place where I have told thee that thou shalt
see the woeful people, who have lost the good of the
understanding."

And when he had put his hand on mine, with a
glad countenance, wherefrom I took courage, he
brought me within the secret things. Here sighs,

12 HELL.

laments, and deep wailings were resounding through
the starless air ; wherefore at first I wept thereat.
Strange tongues, horrible cries, words of woe, ac-
cents of anger, voices high and hoarse, and sounds
of hands with them, were making a tumult which
whirls forever in that air dark without change,
like the sand when the whirlwind breathes.

And I, who had my head girt with horror, said,
" Master, what is it that I hear ? and what folk
are they who seem in woe so vanquished ? "

And he to me, " This miserable measure the
wretched souls maintain of those who lived without
infamy and without praise. Mingled are they with
that caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels,
nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves, v
The heavens chased them out in order to be not
less beautiful, nor doth the depth of Hell receive
them, because the damned would have some glory
from them."

And I, " Master, what is so grievous to them,
that makes them lament so bitterly ? "

He answered, " I will tell thee very briefly.
These have no hope of death ; and their blind life
is so debased, that they are envious of every other
lot. Fame of them the world permitteth not to be ;
mercy and justice disdain them. Let us not speak
of them, but do thou look and pass."

And I, who was gazing, saw a banner, that whirl-

CANTO III. 13

ino" ran so swiftly tliat it seemed to me to scorn all
repose, and behind it came so long a train of folk,
that I could never have believed death had un-
done so many. After I had distinguished some
amon"- them, I saw and knew the shade of him who
made, through cowardice, the great refusal. ^ At
once I understood and was certain, that this was
the sect of the caitiffs displeasing unto God, and
unto his enemies. These wretches, who never were
alive, were naked, and much stung by gad-flies and
by wasps that were there. These streaked their
faces with blood, which, mingled with tears, was
harvested at their feet by loathsome worms.

And when I gave myself to looking onward, I
saw people on the bank of a great river ; wherefore
I said, " Master, now grant to me that I may know
who these are, and what rule makes them appear so
ready to pass over, as I discern through the faint
licrht." And he to me, " The things will be clear to
thee, when we shall set our steps on the sad marge
of Acheron." Then with eyes bashful and cast
down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to
him, far as to the river I refrained from speaking.
And lo! coming toward us in a boat, an old
man, white with ancient hair, crying, " Woe to you,
wicked souls! hope not ever to see Heaven! I
come, to carry you to the other bank, into eternal

1 Wlio is intended by these words is uncertain.

14 BELL.

darkness, to heat and frost. And thou who art
there, living soul, depart from these that are dead."
But when he saw that I did not depart, he said,
" By another way, by other ports thou shalt come
to the shore, not here, for passage ; it behoves that
a lighter bark bear thee." ^

And my Leader to him, " Charon, vex not thyself,
it is thus willed there where is power to do that
which is willed ; and farther ask not." Then the
fleecy cheeks were quiet of the pilot of the livid
marsh, who round about his eyes had wheels of
flame.

But those souls, who were weary and naked,
changed color, and gnashed their teeth soon as
they heard his cruel words. They blasphemed God
and their parents, the human race, the place, the
time and the seed of their sowing and of their
birth. Then, bitterly weeping, they drew back all
of them together to the evil bank, that waits for
every man who fears not God. Charon the demon,
with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects
them all ; he beats with his oar whoever takes his
ease.

As in autumn the leaves fall off one after the
other, till the bough sees all its spoils upon the
earth ; in like wise the evil seed of Adam throw

^ The boat that hears the souls to Purgatory. Charou recog-
nizes that Dante is not among the danined.

CANTO III. 15

themselves from that shore one by one at signals,
as the bird at his call. Thus they go over the
dusky wave, and before they have landed on the far-
ther side, already on this a new throng is gathered.
"My son," said the courteous Master, "those
who die in the wrath of God, all meet together here
from every land. And they are eager to pass over
the stream, for the divine justice spurs them, so that
fear is turned to desire. This way a good soul
never passes ; and therefore if Charon snarleth at
thee, thou now mayest well know what his speech

signifies."

This ended, the dark plain trembled so mightily,
that with the terror my memory yet bathes me with
sweat. The tearful land gave forth a wind that
flashed a vermilion light which vanquished every
sense of mine, and I fell as a man whom slumber
seizes.

CANTO IV.

The further side of Acheron. Virgil leads Dante into
Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those
who lived virtuously but vi^ithout Christianity. Greeting of
Virgil by his fellow poets. They enter a castle, where are
the shades of ancient worthies. Virgil and Dante depart.

A HEAVY thunder broke the deep sleep in my
head, so that I started up like a person who by-
force is wakened. And risen erect, I moved my
rested eye round about, and looked fixedly to dis-
tinguish the place where I was. True it is, that I
found myself on the verge of the valley of the woe-
ful abyss that gathers in thunder of infinite wail-
ings. Dark, profound it was, and cloudy, so that
though I fixed my sight on the bottom I did not
discern anything there.

" Now we descend down here into the blind
world," began the Poet all pallid, " I will be first,
and thou shalt be second."

And I, who had observed his color, said, " How
shall I come, if thou fearest, who art wont to
be a comfort to my doubting ? " And he to me,
" The anguish of the folk who are down here de-

CANTO IV. 17

picts upon my face that pity which thou takest for
fear. Let us go on, for the long way urges us."

So he set forth, and so he made me enter within
the first circle that girds the abyss. Here, so far
as could be heard, there was no plaint but that
of sighs which made the eternal air to tremble :
this came of the woe without torments felt by the
crowds, which were many and great, of infants, and
of women, and of men.

The good Master to me, " Thou dost not ask
what spirits are these that thou seest. Now I would
have thee know, before thou goest farther, that
they sinned not ; and if they have merits it sufficeth
not, because they had not baptism, which is part of
the faith that thou belie vest; and if they were be-
fore Christianity, they did not duly worship God :
and of such as these am I myself. Through such
defects, and not through other guilt, are we lost,
and only so far harmed that without hope we live
in desire."

Great woe seized me at my heart when I heard
him, because I knew that people of much worth
w^ere suspended in that limbo. " Tell me, my Mas-
ter, tell me. Lord," began I, with wish to be as-
sured of that faith that vanquishes every error,^
" did ever any one who afterwards was blessed go

^ Wishing especially to be assured in regard to the descent of
Christ into Hell.

18 HELL,

out from here, either by his own or by another's
merit ? " And he, who understood my covert
speech, answered, " I was new in this state when
I saw a Mighty One come hither crowned with
sign of victory. He drew out hence the shade of
the first parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah,
of Moses the law-giver and obedient, Abraham the
patriarch, and David the King, Israel, with his
father, and with his offspring, and with Rachel, for
whom he did so much, and others many ; and He
made them blessed : and I would have thee know
that before these, human spirits were not saved."

We ceased not going on because he spoke, but all
the while were passing through the wood, the wood
I mean of crowded spirits. Nor yet had our way
been long from where I slept, when I saw a fire,
that conquered a hemisphere of darkness. We
were still a little distant from it, yet not so far that
I could not partially discern that honorable folk
possessed that place. " O thou that honorest both
science and art, these, who are they, that have such
honor that from the condition of the others it sets
them apart?" And he to me, "The honorable
fame of them which resounds above in thy life wins
grace in heaven that so advances them." At this
a voice was heard by me, " Honor the loftiest Poet !
his shade returns that was departed." When the
voice had ceased and was quiet, I saw four great

CANTO IV. 19

shades coming to us : they had a semblance neither
sad nor glad. The good Master began to say,
" Look at him with that sword in hand who cometh
before the three, even as lord. He is Homer, the
sovereign poet ; the next who comes is Horace, the
satirist ; Ovid is the third, and the last is Lucan.
Since each shares with me the name that the soli-
tary voice sounded, they do me honor, and in that
do well."

Thus I saw assembled the fair school of that
Lord of the loftiest song which above the others as
an eagle flies. After they had discoursed some-
what together, they turned to me with sign of sal-
utation ; and my Master smiled thereat. And far
more of honor yet they did me, for they made me
of their band, so that I was the sixth amid so much
wit. Thus we went on as far as the light, speak-
ing things concerning which silence is becoming,
even as was speech there where I was.

We came to the foot of a noble castle, seven
times circled by high walls, defended round about
by a fair streamlet. This we passed as if hard
ground ; through seven gates I entered with these
sages ; we came to a meadow of fresh verdure.
People were there with eyes slow and grave, of
great authority in their looks ; they spake seldom,
and with soft voices. Thus we drew apart, on one
side, into a place open, luminous, and high, so that

20 HELL.

they all could be seen. There opposite upon the
green enamel were shown to me the great spirits,
whom to have seen I inwardly exalt myself.

I saw Electra with many companions, among
whom I knew both Hector and ^^neas, Caesar in
armor, with his gerfalcon eyes ; I saw Camilla and
Penthesilea on the other side, and I saw the King
Latinus, who was seated with Lavinia his daughter.
I saw that Brutus who drove out Tarquin ; Lucre-
tia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia ; and alone, apart,
I saw the Saladin. When I raised my brow a little
more, I saw the Master of those who know, seated
amid the philosophic family ; all regard him, all do
him honor. Here I saw both Socrates and Plato,
who before the others stand nearest to him ; Demo-
critus, who ascribes the world to chance ; Diogenes,
Anaxagoras, and Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus,
and Zeno ; and I saw the good collector of the quali-
ties, Dioscorides, I mean ; and I saw Orpheus, TuUy,
and Linus, and moral Seneca, Euclid the geometer,
and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen, and
Averrhoes, who made the great comment. I can-
not report of all in full, because the long theme so
drives me that many times speech comes short of
fact.

The company of six divides in two. By another
way the wise guide leads me, out from the quiet,
into the air that trembles, and I come into a region
where is nothing that can give light.

CANTO V.

The Second Circle, that of Carnal Sinners. — Minos. —
Shades renowned of old. — Francesca da Rimini.

Thus I descended from the first circle down into
the second, which girdles less space, and so much
more woe that it goads to wailing. There abides
Minos horribly, and snarls ; he examines the sins
at the entrance ; he judges, and he sends accord-
ing as he entwines himself. I mean, that, when
the miscreant spirit comes there before him, every-
thing is confessed, and that discerner of sins sees
what place of Hell is for it ; he girdles himself
with his tail so many times as the degrees he wills
it should be sent down. Always before him stand
many of them. They go, in turn, each to the judg-
ment ; they speak, and hear, and then are whirled
below.

" O thou that comest to the woeful inn," said
Minos to me, when he saw me, leaving the act of
so great an office, " beware how thou enterest, and
to whom thou trustest thyself ; let not the amplitude
of the entrance deceive thee." And my Leader to

22 HELL.

him, " Why then dost thou cry out ? Hinder not his
fated going ; thus is it willed there where is power
to do that which is willed ; and ask thou no more."

Now the woeful notes begin to make themselves
heard ; now am I come where much lamentation
smites me. I had come into a place mute of all
light, that bellows as the sea does in a tempest, if
it is combated by opposing winds. The infernal
hurricane that never rests carries along the spirits
in its rapine ; whirling and smiting it molests them.
When they arrive before its rushing blast, here
are shrieks, and bewailing, and lamenting; here
they blaspheme the power divine. I understood
that unto such torment are condemned the carnal
sinners who subject reason unto lust. And as
their wings bear along the starlings in the cold
season in a troop large and full, so that blast the
evil spirits ; hither, thither, down, up it carries
them ; no hope ever comforts them, not of repose,
but even of less pain.

And as the cranes go singing their lays, making
in air a long line of themselves, so saw I come, ut-
tering wails, shades borne along by the aforesaid
strife. Wherefore I said, " Master, who are those
folk whom the black air so castigates ? " " The
first of these of whom thou wishest to have know-
ledge," said he to me then, " was empress of many
tongues. To the vice of luxury was she so aban-

CANTO V- 23

doned that lust she made licit in her law, to take
away the blame she had incurred. She is Semi-
ramis, of whom it is read that she succeeded Ninus
and had been his spouse ; she held the land which
the Soldan rules. That other is she who, for love,
killed herself, and broke faith to the ashes of Si-
chaeus. Next is Cleopatra, the luxurious. Helen
thou seest, for whom so long a time of ill revolved ;
and thou seest the great Achilles, who at the end
fought with love. Thou seest Paris, Tristan, — "
and more than a thousand shades he showed me
with his finger, and named them, whom love had
parted from our life.

After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of
eld and the cavaliers, pity overcame me, and I was
well nigh bewildered. I began, "Poet, willingly
would I speak with those two that go together, and
seem to be so light upon the wind." And he to
me, " Thou shalt see when they shall be nearer to
us, and do thou then pray them by that love which
leads them, and they will come." Soon as the wind
sways them toward us I lifted my voice, " O weary
souls, come speak to us, unless Someone forbids it."

As doves, called by desire, with wings open and
steady,, fly through the air to their sweet nest, borne
by their will, these issued from the troop where
Dido is, coming to us through the malign air, so
strong was the compassionate cry.

24 HELL.

" O living creature, gracious and benign, that
goest through the hirid air visiting us who stained
the world blood-red, — if the King of the universe
were a friend we would pray Him for thy peace,
since thou hast pity on our perverse ill. Of what
it pleaseth thee to hear, and what to speak, we
will hear and we will speak to you, while the
wind, as now, is hushed for us. The city where I
was born sits upon the sea-shore, where the Po, with
its followers, descends to have peace. Love, that
on gentle heart quickly catches hold, seized him
for the fair person that was taken from me, and
the mode still hurts me. Love, which absolves no
loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing
of him so strongly that, as thou seest, it does not
even now abandon me. Love brought us to one
death. Caina awaits him who quenched our life."
These words were borne to us from them.

Soon as I had heard those injured souls I bowed
my face, and held it down, until the Poet said to me,
"What art thou thinking?" When I replied, I
began, " Alas ! how many sweet thoughts, how
great desire, led these unto the woeful pass."
Then I turned me again to them, and I sj^oke, and
began, " Francesca, thy torments make me sad and
piteous to weeping. But tell me, at tlie time of
the sweet sighs by what and how did love concede
to you to know the dubious desires ? " And she to

J

CANTO V. 25

me, " There is no greater woe than in misery to ^
remember the happy time, and that thy Teacher
knows. But if to know the first root of our love
thou hast so great a longing, I will do like one
who weeps and tells.

" We were reading one day, for delight, of
Lancelot, how love constrained him. We were
alone and without any suspicion. Many times that
reading made us lift our eyes, and took the color
from our faces, but only one point was that which
overcame us. When we read of the longed-for
smile being kissed by such a lover, this one, who
never from me shall be divided, kissed my mouth
all trembling. Galahaut was the book, and he who
wrote it. That day we read in it no farther." ^

While one spirit said this the other was weepino-
so that through pity I swooned, as if I had been
dying, and fell as a dead body falls.

^ In the Romance, it was Galahaut that prevailed on Guinevere
to give a kiss to Lancelot.

CANTO VI.

The Third Circle, that of the Gluttonous. — Cerberus. —
Ciaeco.

When the mind returned, which closed itself be-
fore the pity of these two kinsfolk, that had all
confounded me with sadness, new torments and
new tormented souls I see around me wherever
I move, and howsoever I turn, and wherever I
gaze.

I am in the third circle, that of the rain eternal,
accursed, cold, and heavy. Its rule and quality
are never new. Coarse hail, and foul water and
snow pour down through the tenebrous air; the
earth that receives them stinks. Cerberus, a beast
cruel and monstrous, with three throats barks dog-
like above the people that are here submerged. He
has vermilion eyes, and a greasy and black beard,
and a big belly, and hands armed with claws : he
tears the spirits, flays them, and rends them. The
rain makes them howl like dogs ; of one of their
sides they make a screen for the other ; the profane
wretches often turn themselves.

When Cerberus, the great worm, observed us

CANTO VI. 27

lie opened his mouths, and showed his fangs to us ;
not a limb had he that he kept quiet. And my
Leader opened wide his hands, took some earth, and
with full fists threw it into the ravenous gullets.
As the dog that barking craves, and becomes quiet
when he bites his food, and is intent and fights
only to devour it, such became those filthy faces of
the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls
that they would fain be deaf.

We were passing over the shades whom the heavy
rain subdues, and were setting our feet upon their
vain show that seems a body. They all of them
lay upon the ground, except one who raised himself
to sit, quickly as he saw us passing before him.
" O thou who art led through this Hell," he said
to me, "recognize me, if thou canst; thou wast
made before I was unmade." And I to him, " The
anguish which thou hast perchance withdraws thee
from my memory, so that it seems not that I ever
saw thee. But tell me who thou art, that in a
place so woeful art set, and with such a punishment,
that if any other is greater none is so displeasing."
And he to me, " Thy city which is so full of envy,
that already the sack runs over, held me in it, in
the serene life. You citizens called me Ciacco ; ^
for the damnable sin of gluttony, as thou seest, I
am broken by the rain. And I, wretched soul, am

1 Ciacco, in popular speech, signifies a hog.

28 HELL.

not alone, for all these endure like pimisliment, for
like sin," and more lie said not. I answered him,
" Ciacco, tliy trouble so weighs upon me, that it in-
vites me to weeping ; but tell me, if thou canst, to
Avhat will come the citizens of the divided city ; if
any one in it is iust ; and tell me the reason why
such great discord has assailed it."

And he to me, " After long contention they will
come to blood, and the savage party will chase out
the other with great injury. Thereafter within
three suns it behoves this to fall, and the other
to surmount through the force of one who even
now is tacking. It will hold high its front long
time, keeping the other under heavy burdens, how-
ever it may lament and be shamed thereat. Two
men are just, but there they are not heeded ; Pride,
Envy, Avarice are the three sparks that have in-
flamed their hearts." ^ Here he set end unto the
lamentable sound.

And I to him, " Still I would that thou teach me,
and that of more speech thou make a gift to me.
Farinata and the T^gghiaio who were so worthy,
Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and the Mosca, and the

1 This prophecy relates to the dissensions and violence of the
parties of .the Whites and the Blacks by which Florence was rent.
The " savage party " was that of the Whites, who were mainly
Ghihellines. The " one who even now is tacking- " was the Pope,
Boniface VIII., who was playing fast and loose with both. Who
the " two just men " were is unknown.

CANTO VI. 29

rest who set their minds on well-doing, tell me
where they are, and cause that I may know them,
for great desire constrains me to learn if Heaven
sweeten them, or Hell envenom."

And he, " They are among the blacker souls : a
different sin weighs them down to the bottom ; if
thou so far descendest, thou canst see them. But
when thou shalt be in the sweet world I pray thee
that thou bring me to the memory of others. More
I say not to thee, and more I answer thee not."
His straight eyes he twisted then awry, looked at
me a little, and then bent his head, and fell with
it level with the other blind.

And the Leader said to me, " He wakes no more
this side the sound of the angelic trump. When
the hostile Sovereign shall come, each one will find
again his disuial tomb, will take again his flesh
and his shape, will hear that which through eter-
nity reechoes."

Thus we passed along with slow steps through the
foul mixture of the shades and of the rain, touch-
ing a little on the future life. Wherefore I said,
"Master, these torments will they increase after
the great sentence, or will they become less, or will
they be just as burning? " And he to me, " Re-,
turn to thy science, which declares that the more/
perfect a thing is the more it feels the good, and so '
the pain. Though this accursed people never can

80 HELL.

attain to true perfection, it expects thereafter to be
more tlian now."

We took a circling course along that road, speak-
ing far more than I repeat ; and came to the point
where the descent is. Here we found Pluto,i the
great enemy.

1 Pluto appears here not as Hades, tlie god of the lower world,
but in his character as the giver of wealth.

CANTO VII.

The Fourth Circle, that of the Avaricious and the Prodi-
gal. — Pluto. — Fortune.

The Styx. — The Fifth Circle, that of the Wrathful and
the Sullen.

" Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe^'' — began
Pluto with liis clucking voice. And that gentle
Sage, who knew everything, said to comfort me,
" Let not thy fear hurt thee ; for whatso power he
have shall not take from thee the descent of this
rock." Then he turned to that swollen lip and said,
" Be silent, accursed wolf ! inwardly consume thy-
seK with thine own rage : not without cause is this
going to the abyss ; it is willed on high, there
where Michael did vengeance on the proud adul-
tery." 1 As sails swollen by the wind fall in a heap
when the mast snaps, so fell to earth the cruel
beast.

Thus we descended into the fourth hollow, taking
more of the woeful bank that gathers in the evil of
the whole universe. Ah, Justice of God! Who
heapeth up so many new travails and penalties as
I saw ? And why doth our sin so waste us ? As

^ Adultery, in the sense of infidelity to God.

32 HELL.

doth the wave, yonder upon Charybdis, which is
broken on that which it encounters, so it behoves
that here the people counterdance. ^

Here saw I people more than elsewhere many,
and from one side and the other with great howls
rolling weights by force of chest. They struck
against each other, and then just there each turned,
rolHng backward, crying, " Why keepest thou? " and
" Why flingest thou away ? " Thus they turned
through the dark circle on either hand to the oppo-
site point, still crying out their opprobrious verse ;
then each wheeled round when he had arrived
through his half circle, to the other joust.

And I, who had my heart well-nigh pierced
through, said, " My Master, now declare to me what
folk is this, and if all these tonsured ones on our
left were clerks."

And he to me, " All of these were so asquint in
mind in the first life that they made no spending
there with measure. Clearly enough their voices
bay it out, when they come to the two points of the
circle where the contrary sin divides them. These
were clerks who have no hairy covering on their
head, and Popes and Cardinals, in whom avarice
practices its excess."

And I, " Master, among such as these I ought
surely to recognize some who were polluted with
these evils."

CANTO VII.

33

And he to me, " Vain thought thou harborest ;
the undiscerning life that made them foul, to all
recognition now makes them dim. Forever will
they come to the two buttings ; these wiU rise from
the sepulchre with closed fist, and these with shorn
hair. Ill-giving and ill-keeping has taken from
them the fair world, and set them to this scufae ;
such as it is, I adorn not words for it. Now canst
thou, son, see the brief jest of the goods that are
committed unto Fortune, for which the human race
so scramble ; for all the gold that is beneath the
moon, or that ever was, of these weary souls could
not make a single one repose."

« Master," said I to him, " now tell me further ;
this Fortune, on which thou touchest for me, what
is it, that hath the goods of the world so in its

clutches ? "

And he to me, " O creatures foolish, how great
is that ignorance that harms you ! I would have
thee now take in my judgment of her. He whose
wisdom transcendeth all made the heavens, and
gave them their guides, so that every part on every
part doth shine, equally distributing the light. In
like wise for the splendors of the world. He or-
dained a general ministress and guide, who should
ever and anon transfer the vain goods from race to
race, and from one blood to another, beyond the re-
sistance of human wit. Wherefore one race rules,

34 HELL.

and the other languishes, pursuant to her judgment,
which is occult as the snake in the grass. Your
wisdom hath no withstanding of her : she provides,
judges and maintains her realm, as theirs the other
gods. Her permutations have no truce ; necessity
compels her to be swift, so often cometh he who
obtains a turn. This is she who is so set upon the
cross, even by those who ought to ^ive her praise,
giving her blame amiss and ill report. But she is
blessed and hears this not. With the other Primal
Creatures glad she turns her sphere, and blessed
she rejoices. But now we descend to greater pity.
Already every star sinks that was rising when I
set out, and too long stay is forbidden."

We crossed the circle to the other bank, above a
fount that boils and pours down through a cleft that
proceeds from it. The water was far darker than
perse ; ^ and we, in company with the dusky waves,
entered down through a strange way. A marsh it
makes, that is named Styx, this dismal little stream,
when it has descended to the foot of the malign
gray slopes. And I, who stood intent to gaze, saw
muddy people in that swamp, all naked and with
look of hurt. They were smiting each other, not
only with hands, but with head, and with chest,
and with feet, mangling one another piecemeal
with their teeth.

1 Purple-black.

CANTO VII. 35

The good Master said, " Son, now tliou seest the
souls of those whom anger overcame ; and likewise
I would have thee believe for certain that beneath
the water are folk who sigh, and make this water
bubble at the surface, as thine eye tells thee wher-
ever it turns. Fixed in the slime, they say, ' Sul-
len were we in the sweet air that by the Sun is
gladdened, bearing within ourselves the sluggish
fume ; now we are sullen in the black mire.' This
hymn they gurgle in their throats, for they cannot
speak with entire words." ^

Thus we circled a great arc of the foul fen,
between the dry bank and the slough, with eyes
turned on those who guzzle the mire. We came at
lenofth to the foot of a tower.

1 The sin here punished is that known to the Middle Ages as
acedia, or accidie, — slackness in good works, and spiritual gloom
and despondency. In the Parson's Tale Chaucer says: " Envie
and ire maken bitternesse in heart, which bitternesse is mother
of accidie."

CANTO VIII.

The Fifth Circle. — Phlegyas and his boat. — Passage of
the Styx. — Filippo Argenti. — The City of Dis. — The
demons refuse entrance to the poets.

I SAY, continuing, that, long before we were at
the foot of the high tower, our eyes went upward
to its top because of two flamelets that we saw set
there, and another giving signal back from so far
that hardly could the eye reach it. And I turned
me to the Sea of all wisdom ; I said, " This one,
what says it ? and what answers that other fire ?
and who are they that make it ? " And he to me,
" Upon the turbid waves already thou mayest dis-
cern that which is expected, if the smoke of the
marsh hide it not from thee."

Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran
so swift a course through the air, as a very little
boat which I saw coming through the water toward
us at that instant, under the direction of a single
pilot, who was crying out, " Art thou then come,
fell soul ? "

" Phlegyas, Phlegyas, this time thou criest out
in vain," said my Lord ; " longer thou shalt not have

CANTO VIIL 37

US than only while crossing the slough." As one
who listens to some great deceit that has been prac-
ticed on him, and then chafes at it, such became
Phlegyas in his stifled anger.

My Leader descended into the bark and then he
made me enter after him, and only when I was in
did it seem laden. Soon as my Leader and I were
in the boat, the antique prow goes its way, cutting
more of the water than it is wont with others.

While we were running through the dead chan-
nel, before me showed himself one full of mud, and
said, " Who art thou that comest before the hour ? '*
And I to him, " If I come I stay not ; but thou,
who art thou that art become so foul ? " He an-
swered, " Thou seest that I am one who weeps. "
And I to him, " With weeping and with wailing,
accursed spirit, do thou remain, for I know thee
although thou art all filthy." Then he stretched to
the boat both his hands, whereat the wary Master
thrust him back, saying, " Begone there, with the
other dogs ! " Then with his arms he clasped my
neck, kissed my face, and said, " Disdainful soul,
blessed is she who bore thee ! This one was an
arrogant person in the world ; no goodness is there
that adorns his memory; therefore is his shade so
furious here. How many now up there are held
o^reat kinoes who shall stand here like swine in
mire, leaving of themselves horrible dispraises."

38 HELL.

And I, "Master, I should much like to see him
ducked in this broth before we depart from the
lake." And he to me, " Ere the shore allows thee
to see it thou shalt be satisfied ; it will be fitting
that thou enjoy such a desire." After this a little
I saw such rending of him by the muddy folk that
I still praise God therefor, and thank Him for it.
All cried, " At Filippo Argenti ! " and the raging
Florentine spirit turned upon himself with his
teeth. Here we left him ; so that I tell no more of
him.

But on my ears there smote a wailing, whereat
forward intent I open wide my eye. And the
good Master said, " Now, son, the city draws near
that is named Dis, with its heavy citizens, with
its great throng." And I, "Master, already its
mosques there within surely in the valley I discern,
vermilion, as if issuing from fire." And he said
to me, " The eternal fire that blazes within them
displays them red as thou seest in this low Hell."

We at last arrived within the deep ditches that en-
compass that disconsolate city. The walls seemed
to me to be of iron. Not without first making a
great circuit did we come to a place where the
pilot loudly shouted to us, " Out with you, here is
the entrance."

Upon the gates I saw more than a thousand of
those rained down from heaven who angrily were

CANTO VIII. 39

saying, " Who is this, that without death goes
through the realm of the dead folk? " Aud my
wise Master made a sign of wishing to speak se-
cretly with them. Then they shut in a little their
great scorn, and said, " Come thou alone, and let
him be gone who so daring entered on this realm.
Alone let him return on the mad path : let him try
if he can, for thou shalt remain here, who hast
escorted him through so dark a region."

Think, Reader, if ^I was discomforted at the
sound of the accursed words, for I did not believe
ever to return hither. ^

" O my dear Leader, who more than seven times
hast renewed assurance in me, and drawn me from
deep peril that stood confronting me, leave me
not," said I, " thus undone ; .and, if the going far-
ther onward is denied us, let us together retrace
our footprints quickly." And that Lord who had
led me thither said to me, " Fear not, for no one
can take from us our onward way, by Such an one
it is given to us. But here await me, and comfort
thy dejected spirit and feed on good hope, for I
will not leave thee in the nether world."

So the sweet Father goes away, and here aban-
dons me, and I remain in suspense ; and yes and no
contend within my head. I could not hear what he
set forth to them, but he had not staid there long

^ To this world.

40 HELL.

with them, when each ran at full speed back within.
These our adversaries closed the gates on the breast
of my Lord, who remained without, and returned
back to me with slow steps. He held his eyes
upon the ground, and his brow was shorn of all
hardihood, and he said in sighs, " Who hath de-
nied to me the woeful habitations ? " And he said
to me, *'Thou, because I am wroth, be not dis-
mayed, for I shall overcome the test, whatever be
contrived within for hindrance. This their inso-
lence is not new, for of old they used it at a less
secret gate, which still is found without a bolt.
Above it thou didst see the dead inscription ;
and already on this side of it descends the steej),
passing through the circles without escort. One by
whom the city shall be opened to us."

CANTO IX.

The City of Dis. — Erichtho. — The Three Furies. — The
Heavenly Messenger. — The Sixth Circle, that of the Here-
siarchs.

That color which cowardice painted outwardly
on me when I saw my Guide turn back, repressed
more speedily his own new color. He stopped
attentive, like a man that listens, for the eye could
not lead him far through the black air, and
through the dense fog.

" Yet it must be for us to win the fight," began
he, '' unless - — Such an one offered herself to us.^
Oh how slow it seems till Some one here arrive ! " ^

I saw well how he covered up the beginning with
the rest that came after, which were words differ-
ent from the first. But nevertheless his speech
gave me fear, because I drew his broken phrase
perchance to a worse meaning than he had.

" Into this depth of the dismal shell doth any one
ever descend from the first grade who hath for

1 Beatrice.

2 The messenger from Heaven, referred to in the last verses of
the last canto.

42 HELL.

penalty only hope cut off ? " ^ This question I put,
and he answered me, " Rarely it happens that any
one of us maketh the journey on which I am going.
It is true that another time I was conjured down
here by that cruel Erichtho who was wont to call
back shades into their bodies. Short while had my
flesh been bare of me, when she made me enter
within that wall in order to drag out for her a
spirit from the circle of Judas. That is the lowest
place, and the darkest, and the farthest from the
Heaven that encircles all. Well do I know the
road : therefore assure thyself. This marsh which
breathes out the great stench girds round about the
woeful city wherein now we cannot enter without
anger."

And more he said, but I hold it not in mind be-
cause my eye had wholly attracted me toward the
high tower with the ruddy summit, where in an in-
stant were uprisen suddenly three infernal furies,
stained with blood, who had the limbs of women
and their action, and were girt with greenest hy-
dras. Little serpents and cerastes they had for
hair, wherewith their cruel temples were bound.

And he, who well knew the handmaids of the
queen of the eternal lamentation, said to me, " Be-
hold the fell Erinnyes ; this is Megaera on the

^ Dante asks for assurance that Virgil, whose station is in
Limbo, " the first grade," knows the way.

CANTO IX. 43

left side, she who weeps on the right is Alecto,
Tisiphone is in the middle," and therewith he was

silent.

With their nails each was tearing her breast,
they beat themselves with their hands, and cried
out so loud that I pressed close to the Poet throngh
dread. " Let Medusa come, so we will make him
of stone," they all said, looking down. " 111 was
it we avenged not his assault on Theseus."

'' Turn thy back, and keep thy sight closed, for
if the Gorgon show herself, and thou shouldest see
her, no return upward would there ever be." Thus
said the Master, and he himself turned me, and
trusted not to my hands but with his own he also
blindfolded me.

O ye who have sound understanding, regard the
doctrine that is hidden under the veil of the strange

verses.

And already was coming across the turbid waves
a tumult of a sound full of terror at which both
the shores trembled. Not otherwise it was than
of a wind, impetuous through the opposing heats,
that strikes the forest, and without any stay -shat-
ters the branches, beats down and carries them
away; forward, laden with dust, it goes superb,
and makes the wild beasts and the shepherds fly.

My eyes he loosed, and said, " Now direct the
nerve of sight across the ancient scmn, there yon-
der where that smoke is most bitter."

44 HELL.

As froo's before the hostile snake all scatter
through the water, till each huddles on the ground,
I saw more than a thousand destroyed souls flying
thus before one, who at the ford was passing o'er
the Styx with dry feet. From his face he removed
..^hat thick air, waving his left hand oft before him,
and only with that anguish seemed he weary.
Well I perceived that he was sent from Heaven,
and I turned me to the Master, and he made sign
that I should stand quiet and bow down unto him.
Ah, how full of disdain he seemed to me ! He
reached the gate and with a little rod he opened it,
for there was no withstanding.

*' O outcasts from Heaven, folk despised," began
he upon the horrible threshold, " wherefore is this
overweening harbored in you ? Why do ye kick
against that will from wliich its end can never be cut
short, and which many a time hath increased your
grief ? What avails it to butt against the fates ?
Your Cerberus, if ye remember well, still bears his
chin and his throat peeled for that." Then he
turned back upon the filthy road and said no word
to us, but wore the semblance of a man whom other
care constrains and stings, than that of him who is
before him.

And we moved our feet toward the city, confident
after his holy words. Within we entered without
any strife, and I, who had desire to observe the

CANTO IX. 45

condition which such a stronghold locks in, when I
was within, sent my eyes round about ; and I see
on every hand a great plain full of woe and of cruel
torment.

As at Aries, where the Rhone stagnates ; as at
Pola, near the Quarnaro that shuts in Italy and
bathes its borders, sepulchres make all the place
uneven ; so did they here on every side, saving that
the manner was more bitter here ; for among the
tombs flames were scattered, by which they were
so intensely kindled that no art requires iron more
so. All their lids were lifted; and such dire la-
ments were issuing forth from them as truly seemed
of wretches and of sufferers.

And I, " Master, who are these folk that, buried
within those coffers, make themselves heard with
their woeful sighs ? " And he to me, " Here are the
heresiarchs with their followers of every sect, and
the tombs are much more laden than thou thinkest.
Like with like is buried here, and the monuments
are more and less hot."

And when he to the right hand had turned, we
passed between the torments and the high battle-
ments.

CANTO X.

The Sixth Circle : Heresiarchs. — Farinata degli Uberti.
— Cavalcante Cavaleanti. — Frederick II.

Now along a narrow path between the wall of
the city and the torments my Master goeth on, and
I behind his shonlders.

" O Virtue supreme," I began, " that through
the impious circles turnest me, according to thy
pleasure, speak to me and satisfy my desires. The
folk that are lying in the sepulchres, can they be
seen ? All the lids are now lifted, and no one keep-
eth guard." And he to me, " All shall be locked
in when from Jehoshaphat they shall here return
with the bodies which they have left on earth.
Upon this side have their burial place with Epi-
curus all his followers, who make the soul mortal
with the body. Therefore as to the demand that
thou makest of me, thou slialt soon be satisfied here
within ; and also as to the desire concerning which
thou art silent to me." And I, " Good Leader, I
hold not my heart hidden from thee except in or-
der to speak little ; and not only now to that hast
thou disposed me."

CANTO X. 47

*' O Tuscan, who through the city of fire alive
art going, speaking thus modestly, may it j^lease
thee to stop in this place. Thy speech makes man-
ifest that thou art native of that noble fatherland
to which perchance I was too molestful." Sud-
denly this sound issued from one of the coffers,
wherefore I drew, in fear, a little nearer to my
Leader. And he said to me, " Turn, what dost
thou ? Behold Farinata who hath uprisen ; thou
shalt see him all from the girdle up."

I had already fixed my face on his, and he
straightened himself up with breast and front as
though he had Hell in great scorn. And the bold
and ready hands of my Leader pushed me among
the sepulchres to him, saying, " Let thy words be
choice."

When I was at the foot of his tomb, he looked
at me a little, and then, as though disdainful, asked
me, " Who were thy ancestors ? " I, who was de-
sirous to obey, concealed them not, but disclosed
them all to him ; whereon he raised his brows a lit-
tle up, then said, " Fiercely were they adverse to
me, and to my fathers, and to my party, so that
twice I scattered them." i " If they were driven
out, they returned from every side," replied I to
him, " both one and the other time, but yours have
not learned well that art."

^ Dante's ancestors were Guelphs.

48 HELL.

Then there arose, to view uncovered down to the
chin, a shade at the side of this one ; I think that
it had risen on its knees. Kound about me it
looked, as if it had desire to see if another were with
me, but when its expectancy was quite extinct,
weeping it said, " If through this blind dungeon
thou goest through loftiness of genius, my son,
where is he ? and why is he not with thee ? " And
I to him, " Of myself I come not ; he who waits
yonder leads me through here, whom perchance
your Guido held in scorn." ^

His words and the mode of the punishment had
already read to me the name of this one, wherefore
my answer was so full.

Suddenly straightening up, he cried, " How
didst thou say, ' he held ' ? lives he not still ? doth
not the sweet light strike his eyes ? " When he
took note of some delay that I made before an-
swering, he fell again supine, and forth appeared
no more.

But that other magnanimous one, at whose in-
stance I had stayed, changed not aspect, nor moved
his neck, nor bent his side. " And if," he said,
continuing his first words, " they have ill learned
that art, it torments me more than this bed. But
the face of the lady who ruleth here will not be

^ Guido Cavalcanti was charged with the same sin of unbelief
as his father. Dante regards this as a sin specially contrary to
right reason, typified by Virgil.

CANTO X. 49

rekindled fifty times ere thou shalt know how much
that art weighs. And, so mayest thou return unto
the sweet world, tell me wherefore is that people so
pitiless against my race in its every law ? " Then
I to him, "The rout and the great carnage that
colored the Arbia red cause such orison to be made
in our temple." After he had, sighing, shaken
his head, " In that I was not alone," he said, " nor
surely without cause would I have moved with
the rest ; but I was alone, — there ^ where it was
agreed by every one to lay Florence waste, — he
who defended her with open face." " Ah ! so here-
after may your seed repose," I prayed to him,
"loose for me that knot, which here has entangled
my judgment. It seems, if I rightly hear, that
ye foresee that which time is bringing with him,
and as to the present have another way." " We
see," he said, " like those who have feeble light,
the things that are far from us, so much still shin-
eth on us the supreme Leader ; when they draw
near, or are, our intelligence is aU vain, and, if
some one report not to us, we know nothing of your
human state. Therefore thou canst comprehend
that our knowledge will be utterly dead from that
moment when the gate of the future shall be
closed." Then, as compunctious for my fault, I
said, " Now wilt thou therefore tell that fallen one

1 At Empoli, in 1260, after the defeat of the Florentine Guelphs
at Montaperti on the Arbia.

50 HELL.

that his son is still conjoined with the living, and
if just now I was dumb to answer, make him know
that I was so because I was still thinking in that
error which you have solved for me." ^

And now my Master was calling me back, where-
fore I prayed the spirit more hastily that he would
tell me who was with him. He said to me, " Here
with thousands do I lie ; here within is the second
Frederick and the Cardinal,^ and of the others I am
silent."

Thereon he hid himself ; and I toward the ancient
Poet turned my steps, reflecting on that speech
which seemed hostile to me. He moved on, and
then, thus going, he said to me, " Why art thou so
distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let
thy memory preserve that which thou hast heard
against thyself," commanded me that Sage, "and
now attend to this," and he raised his finger.
" When thou shalt be in presence of the sweet ra-
diance of her whose beautiful eye sees everything,
from her thou shalt learn the journey of thy life."
Then to the left he turned his step.

We left the wall, and went toward the middle
by a path which strikes into a valley that even up
there its stench made displeasing.

1 Guido Cavaleanti died in August, 1300 ; his death, being near
at hand at the time of Dante's journey, was not known to his
father.

2 Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a fierce Ghihelline, who was reported
as saying, " If there be a soul I have lost it for the Ghibellines."

CANTO XI.

The Sixth Circle : Heretics. — Tomb of Pope Anastasius.
— Discourse of Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell.

Upon the edge of a high bank formed by great
rocks broken in a circle, we came above a more
cruel pen. And here, because of the horrible
excess of the stench that the deep abyss throws
out, we drew aside behind the lid of a great tomb,
whereon I saw an inscription which said, " Pope
Anastasius I hold, he whom Photinus drew from
the right way."

"Our descent must needs be slow so that the
sense may first accustom itself a little to the dis-
mal blast, and then will be no heed of it." Thus
the Master, and I said to him, " Some compensa-
tion do thou find that the time pass not lost." And
he, "Behold, I am -thinking of that. My son,
within these rocks," he began to say, " are three
circlets from grade to grade like those thou leavest.
All are full of accursed spirits ; but, in order that
hereafter sight only may suffice thee, hear how and
wherefore they are in constraint.

" Of every malice that wins hate in heaven in-

52 HELL,

jury is the end, and every such end afflicts others
either by force or by fraud. But because fraud is
the peculiar sin of man, it most displeaseth God ;
and therefore the fraudulent are the lower, and
more woe assails them.

" The first circle ^ is wholly of the violent ; but
because violence can be done to three persons, in
three rounds it is divided and constructed. Unto
God, unto one's self, unto one's neighbor may vio-
lence be done ; I mean unto them and unto their
belongings, as thou shalt hear in plain discourse.
Death by violence, and grievous wounds are in-
flicted on one's neighbor ; and on his substance
ruins, burnings, and harmful robberies. Where-
fore homicides, and every one who smites wrong-
fully, devastators and freebooters, all of them the
first round torments, in various troops.

" Man may lay violent hands upon himself and
on his goods ; and, therefore, in the second round
must needs repent without avail whoever deprives
himself of your world, and squanders his property,
and laments there where he ought to be joyous.^

"Violence may be done to the Deity, by denying
and blaspheming Him in heart, and despising na-
ture and His bounty: and therefore the smallest

1 The first circle below, the seventh in the order of Hell.

2 Laments on earth because of violence done to what should
have made him happy.

CANTO XL 58

round seals with its signet both Sodom and Cahors,
and him who despising God speaks from his heart.
"Fraud, by which every conscience is bitten,
man may practice on one that confides in him, or
on one that owns no confidence. This latter mode
seemeth to destroy only the bond of love that na-
ture makes ; wherefore in the second circle ^ nestle
hypocrisy, flatteries, and sorcerers, falsity, robbery,
and simony, panders, barrators, and such like filth.

"By the other mode that love is forgotten
which nature makes, and also that which is there-
after added, whereby special confidence is created.
Hence, in the smallest circle, where is the centre
of the universe, on which Dis sits, whoso betrays
is consumed forever."

And I, " Master, full clearly doth thy disccurse
proceed, and full well divides this pit, and the peo-
ple that possess it ; but, tell me, they of the fat
marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and they
whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with
such sharp tongues, why are they not punished
within the ruddy city if God is wroth with them ?
and if he is not so, why in such fashion are they ? "

And he said to me, " Wherefore so wanders thine
understanding beyond its wont? or thy mind, where
else is it gazing ? Dost thou not remember those
words with which thine Ethics treats in full of the

1 The second circle below, the eighth in the order of Hell.

54: HELL.

three dispositions that Heaven abides not ; incon-
tinence, malice, and mad bestiality, and how in-
continence less offendeth God, and acquireth least
blame ? -^ If thou considerest well this doctrine,
and bringest to mind who are those that up above,
outside,^ suffer punishment, thou wilt see clearly
why from these felons they are divided, and why
less wroth the divine vengeance hammers them."

" O Sun that healest every troubled vision, thou
dost content me so, when thou explainest, that
doubt, not less than knowledge, pleaseth me ; yet
return a little back," said I, " there where thou
saidst that usury offends the Divine Goodness, and
loose the knot."

" Philosophy," he said to me, " points out to him
who understands it, not only in one part alone, how
nature takes its course from the Divine Intellect
and from its art. And if thou note thy Physics^
well thou wilt find after not many pages that your
art follows that so far as it can, as the disciple does
the master, so that your art is as it were grand-
child of God. By means of these two, if thou
bringest to mind Genesis at its beginning, it be-
hoves mankind to obtain their livelihood and
to thrive. But because the usurer takes another

^ Aristotle, Ethics, vii. 1.

2 Outside the walls of the city of Dis.

^ Aristotle, Physics, ii. 2.

CANTO XI. 55

course, he despises Nature in herself, and in her
follower, since upon other thing he sets his hope.
But follow me now, for to go on pleaseth me ; for
the Fishes are gliding on the horizon, and the
Wain lies quite over Corus,^ and far yonder is
the way down the cliff."

1 The time indicated is about 4, or from 4 to 5 A. m. Corus,
the name of the north-west wind, here stands for that quarter of
the heavens.

CANTO XII.

First round of the Seventh Circle; those who do violence
to others ; Tyrants and Homicides. — The Minotaur. — The
Centaurs. — Chiron. — Nessus. — The River of Boiling Blood,
and the Sinners in it.

The place where we came to descend the bank
was rugged, and, because of what was there be-
sides, such that every eye would be shy of it.

As is that ruin which on this side of Trent struck
the Adige on its flank either by earthquake or by
failure of support, — for from the top of the moun-
tain whence it moved, to the plain, the cliff has so
fallen down that it might give a path to one who
was above, — so was the descent of that ravine.
And on the edge of the broken chasm lay stretched
out the infamy of Crete, that was conceived in the
false cow. And when he saw us he bit himself
even as one whom wrath rends inwardl3^ My Sage
cried out toward him, " Perchance thou belie vest
that here is the Duke of Athens who up in the
world brought death to thee ? Get thee gone,
beast, for this one cometh not instructed by thy
sister, but he goeth to behold your punishments."

As a bull that breaks away at the instant he has

CANTO XIL 57

now received his mortal stroke, and cannot go, but
plunges hither and thither, the Minotaur I saw do
the like.

And that wary one cried out, " Run to the pass ;
while he is rao:ino: it is well that thou descend."
So we took our way down over the discharge of
those stones, which often moved under my feet be-
cause of the novel burden.

I was going along thinking, and he said, " Thou
thinkest perhaps on this ruin which is guarded by
that bestial wrath which I just now quenched.
Now would I have thee know that the other time
when I descended hither into the nether hell, this
cliff had not yet fallen. But in truth, if I dis-
cern clearly, a little ere He came, who levied the
great spoil on Dis from the supernal circle, in all
its parts the deep foul valley trembled so that I
thought the universe had felt the love by which,
as some believe, oft times the world has been con-
verted into chaos : ^ and, at that moment, this an-
cient cliff here and elsewhere made this downfall.
But fix thine eyes below, for the river of blood is
near, in which boils whoso doth harm to others by
violence."

1 Empedocles taiig'ht, as Dante may have learned from Aristo-
tle, that Love and Hate were the forces by which the elements of
which the world is composed were united and dissociated. The
effort of Love was to draw all things into a simple perfect sphere,
by which the common order of the world would be brought to
chaos.

58 HELL.

Oh blind cupidity, botli guilty and mad, that so
spurs us in the brief life, and then, in the eternal,
steeps us so ill !

I saw a broad ditch, bent in an arc, like one
that embraces all the plain ; according as my Guide
had said. And between the foot of the bank and
it, in a file were running Centaurs armed with ar-
rows, as they were wont in the world to go to the
chase. Seeing us descending, all stopped, and from
the troop three detached themselves, with bows and
arrows first selected. And one shouted from afar,
" To what torment are ye coming, ye who descend
the slope ? Tell it from there ; if not, I draw the
bow." My Master said, "We will make answer
unto Chiron near you there : ill was it that thy will
was ever thus hasty."

Then he touched me, and said, " That is Nessus,
who died for the beautiful Dejanira, and he himself
wrought venireance for himself ; and that one in the
middle, who is gazing on his breast, is the great
Chiron who nurtured Achilles. That other is Pho-
lus, who was so full of wrath. Round about the
ditch they go by thousands shooting with their
arrows what soul lifts itself from the blood more
than its guilt has allotted it."

We drew near to those fleet wild beasts. Chiron
took a shaft, and with the notch put his beard
backward upon his jaw. When he had uncovered

CANTO XII. 59

his great mouth he said to his companions, "Are
ye aware that the one behind moves what he
touches ? so are not wont to do the feet of the
dead." And my good Leader, who was now at his
breast, where the two natures are conjoined, re-
plied, " Truly he is alive, and thus all alone it be-
hoves me to show him the dark valley : necessity
brino's him hither and not delio'ht. One withdrew
from sino-ino" alleluiah who committed unto me this
new office ; he is no robber, nor I a thievish spirit.
But, by that power through which I move my steps
along so savage a road, give to us one of thine, to
whom we may be close, that he may show us where
the ford is, and may carry this one on his back, for
he is not a spirit who can go through the air."

Chiron turned upon his right breast, and said to
Nessus, " Turn, and guide them thus, and if another
troop encounter you, make it give way."

We moved on with the trusty escort along the
edge of the crimson boiling, in which the boiled
were making loud shrieks. I saw folk under it up
to the brow, and the great Centaur said, " These
are tyrants who gave themselves to blood and pil-
lage. Here they weep their pitiless offenses : here
is Alexander, and cruel Dionysius who caused Si-
cily to have woeful years. And that front which
hath such black hair is Azzolino, and that other
wdio is blond is Opizzo of Esti, who in truth was
slain by his stepson up there in the world."

60 HELL.

Then I turned me to the Poet, and he said, " Let
him now be first, and I second." A little further
on the Centaur stopped above some folk who far
as the throat were seen to issue from that boiling
stream. He showed to us at one side a solitary
shade, and said, " He cleft, in the bosom of God,
the heart that still is honored on the Thames." ^
Then I saw folk, who out of the stream held their
head, and even all their chest ; and of these I re-
cognized many. Thus ever more and more shallow
became that blood, until it cooked only the feet :
and here was our passage of the foss.

" Even as on this side, thou seest that the boil-
ing stream ever diminishes," said the Centaur, " I
would have thee believe that on this other its bed
sinks more and more, until it comes round again
where it behoves that tyranny should groan. The
divine justice here pierces that Attila who was a
scourge on earth, and Pyrrhus and Sextus ; and
forever milks the tears that with the boiling it
unlocks from Einier of Corneto, and from Rinier
Pazzo, who upon the highways made such war-
fare."

Then he turned back and repassed the ford.

1 In 1271, Prince Henry, son of Richard of Cornwall, was
stabbed during the mass, in a church at Viterbo, by Guy of
Montfort, to avenge the death of his father, Simon, Earl of
Leicester, in 1261. The heart of the young Prince was placed in
a golden cup, as Villani (vii. 39) reports, on a column, at the head
of a bridge in London.

CANTO XIII.

Second round of the Seventh Circle : of those who have
done violence to themselves and to their goods. — The Wood
of Self - murderers. — The Harpies. — Pier delle Vigne. —
Lano of Siena and others.

4

Nessus had not yet reached the yonder bank
when we set forward through a wood which was
marked by no path. Not green leaves but of a
dusky color, not smooth boughs but knotty and
gnarled, not fruits were there but thorns with
poison. Those savage beasts that hold in hate the
tilled places between Cecina and Corneto have no
thickets so rough or so dense.

Here the foul Harpies make their nests, who
chased the Trojans from the Strophades with dis-
mal announcement of future calamity. They have
broad wings, and human necks and faces, feet with
claws, and a great feathered belly. They make
lament upon the strange trees.

And the good Master, " Before thou enter far-
ther know that thou art in the second round," he
began to say to me, " and wilt be, till thou shalt

62 HELL.

come unto the horrible sand. Therefore look well
around, and so thou shalt see things that would
take credence from my speech." ^

I heard wailings uttered on every side, and I saw
no one who might make them, wherefore, I, all
bewildered, stopped. I believe that he believed
that I believed that all these voices issued amid
those stumps from people who because of us had
hidden themselves.

Therefore said the Master, " If thou break off a
twig from one of these plants, the thoughts thou
hast will all be cut short." Then I stretched my
hand a little forward and plucked a branchlet from
a great thorn-bush, and its trunk cried out, " Why
dost thou rend me ? " When it had become dark
with blood it began again to cry, " Why dost thou
tear me ? hast thou not any spirit of pity ? Men
we were, and now we are become stocks ; truly
thy hand ought to be more pitiful had we been the
souls of serpents."

As from a green log that is burning at one of its
ends, and from the other drips, and hisses with the
air that is escaping, so from that broken splinter
came out words and blood together ; whereon I let
the tip fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

'' If he had been able to believe before," replied
my Sage, " O wounded soul, what he has seen only

1 Things which if told would seem incredible.

CANTO XIII. 63

in my verse,^ lie would not upon thee have stretched
his hand. But the incredible thing made me
prompt him to an act which grieves my very self.
But tell him who thou wast, so that, by way of some
amends, he may refresh thy fame in the world
above, whereto it is allowed him to return."

And the trunk, " So with sweet speech dost thou
allure me, that I cannot be silent, and may it not
displease you, that I am enticed to speak a little.
I am he who held both the keys of the heart of
Frederick, and who turned them, locking and un-
locking so softly, that from his confidence I kej^t
almost every one.^ Fidelity so great I bore to the
glorious office, that I lost slumber and strength
thereby. The harlot,^ that never from the abode of
Caesar turned her strumpet eyes, — the common
death and vice of courts, — inflamed all minds
against me, and they, inflamed, did so inflame Au-
gustus that my glad honors turned to dismal sor-
rows. My mind, in scornful temper thinking to
esca23e scorn by death, made me unjust toward my

1 In the story of Polyclorus, In the third hook of the ^neid.

2 The spirit who speaks is Pier delle Vigne, the Chancellor of
Frederick II. ; of low birth, he rose to the first place in the state ;
he was one of the earliest writers of Italian verse. Dante has
placed his master as well as him in Hell. See Canto X.

3 Envie ys lavendere of the court alway ;
For she ne parteth neither nyght ne day
Out of the house of Cesar, thus saith Daunte.

Legende of Goode Women, 358-60.

64 HELL.

just self. By the strange roots of this tree I swear
to you, that I never broke faith unto my lord who
was so worthy of honor. And if one of you re-
turneth to the world, let him comfort my memory
that yet lies prostrate from the blow that envy
gave it."

A while he ^^^.used, and then, " Since he is
silent," said the Poet to me, " lose not the hour,
but speak and ask of him, if more pleaseth thee."
Whereon I to him, " Do thou ask him further of
what thou thinkest may satisfy me, for I cannot,
such pity fills my heart."

Therefore he began again, " So may this man
do for thee freely what thy speech prays, spirit in-
carcerate, still be pleased to tell us how the soul
is bound within these knots, and tell us, if thou
canst, if any from such limbs is ever loosed."

Then the trunk puffed strongly, and soon that
wind was changed into this voice : " Briefly shall
ye be answered. When the ferocious soul depart-
eth from the body wheref rom itself hath torn itself,
Minos sends it to the seventh gulf. It falls into
the wood, and no part is chosen for it, but where
fortune flings it, there it takes root like a grain of
spelt ; it springs up in a shoot and to a wild j^lant.
The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves, give
pain, and to the pain a window.^ Like the rest

^ The tearing of the leaves gives an outlet to the woe.

CANTO XIII. 65

we shall go for our spoils,^ but not, forsooth, that
any one may revest himself with them, for it is not
just to have that of which one deprives himself.
Hither shall we drag them, and through the melan-
choly wood shall our bodies be suspended, each
on the thorn-tree of his molested shade."

We were still attentive to the trunk, believing
that it might wish to say more to us, when we were
surprised by an uproar, as one who perceives the
wild boar and the chase coming toward his stand
and hears the beasts and the branches crashing.
And behold two on the left hand, naked and
scratched, flying so violently that they broke all the
limbs of the wood. The one in front was shout-
ing, " Now, help, help, Death ! " and the other, who
seemed to himself too slow, " Lano, thy legs were
not so nimble at the jousts of the Toppo : " ^ and
when perhaps his breath was failing, of himself
and of a bush he made a group. Behind them the
wood was full of black bitches, ravenous and run-
ning like greyhounds that have been unleashed.
On him that had squatted they set their teeth and
tore him to pieces, bit by bit, then carried off his
woeful limbs.

^ Our bodies, at the Last Judgment.

2 Lano was slain in flight at the defeat of the Sienese hy the
Aretians, near the Pieve del Toppo, in 1280. He and Jaeonio
were notorious prodigals.

66 HELL.

My Guide then took me by the hand, and led
me to the bush, which was weeping through its
bleeding breaks in vain. " O Jacomo of Sant' An-
drea," it was saying, " what hath it vantaged thee
to make of me a screen? What blame have I
for thy wicked life?" When the Master had
stopped beside it, he said, " Who wast thou, who
through so many wounds blowest forth with blood
thy woeful speech ? " And he to us, " O souls who
art arrived to see the shameful ravage that hath
thus disjoined my leaves from me, collect them at
the foot of the wretched bush. I was of the city
which for the Baptist changed her first patron ; ^
wherefore will he always make her sorrowful with
his art. And were it not that at the passage of the
Arno some semblance of him yet remains, those
citizens who afterwards rebuilt it upon the ashes
that were left by Attila^ would have labored in
vain. I made a gibbet for myself of my own
dwelling."

1 The first patron of Florence was Mars ; a fragment of a statue
of whom stood till 1333 on the Ponte Vecchio.

2 It was not Attila, but Totila, who in 542 besieged Florence,
and, according to false popular tradition, burned it. The names
and personages were frequently confounded in the Dark Ages.

CANTO XIV.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : of those who have
done violence to God. — The Burning Sand. — Capaneus. —
Figure of the Old Man in Crete. — The Kivers of Hell.

Because the charity of my native place con-
strained me, I gathered up the scattered leaves and
gave them back to him who was already hoarse.

Then we came to the confine, where the second
round is divided from the third, and where is seen
a horrible mode of justice.

To make clearly manifest the new things, I say
that we had reached a plain which from its bed
removeth every plant. The woeful wood is a gar-
land round about it, even as the dismal foss to
that. Here, on the very edge, we stayed our steps.
The floor was a dry and dense sand, not made in
other fashion than that which of old was trodden
by the feet of Cato.

O vengeance of God, how much thou oughtest
to be feared by every one who readeth that which
was manifest unto mine eyes !

Of naked souls I saw many flocks, that were all
weeping very miserably, and diverse law seemed

68 HELL,

imposed upon them. Some folk were Ij'ing su-
pine on tlie ground, some were seated all crouched
up, and others were going about continually. Those
who were going around were far the more, and those
the fewer who were lying down under the torment,
but they had their tongues more loose for wailing.

Over all the sand, with a slow falling, were
raining down dilated flakes of fire, as of snow
on alps without a wind. As the flames which
Alexander in those hot parts of India saw fall-
ing upon his host, solid to the ground, wherefore
he took care to trample the soil by his troops,
because the vapor was better extinguished while
it was single ; so was descending the eternal glow
whereby the sand was kindled, like tinder be-
neath the steel, for doubling of the dole. With-
out repose was ever the dance of the wretched
hands, now there, now here, brushing from them
the fresh burning.

I began, "Master, thou that overcomest every-
thing, except the obdurate demons, who at the en-
trance of the gate came out against us, who is that
great one that seemeth not to heed the fire, and
lies scornful and contorted, so that the rain seems
not to ripen him ? " And that same one who had
perceived that I was asking my Leader about him,
cried out, " Such as I was alive, such am I dead.
Though Jove weary his smith, from whom in

CANTO XIV. 69

wratli he took the sharp thunderbolt wherewith on
my last day I was smitten, or though he weary the
others, turn by turn, in Mongibello at the black
forge, crying, ' Good Vulcan, help, help ! ' even as
he did at the fight of Phlegra, and should hurl on
me with all his might, thereby he should not have
glad vengeance."

Then my Leader spoke with force so great that I
had not heard him so loud, " O Capaneus, in that
thy pride is not quenched, art thou the more pun-
ished ; no torture save thine own rage would be a
pain adequate to thy fury."

Then he turned round to me with better look,
saying, " He w'as one of the Seven Kings that be-
sieged Thebes, and he held, and it appears that he
holds God in disdain, and little it appears that he
prizes Him ; but as I said to him, his own despites
are very due adornments for his breast. Now come
on behind me, and take heed wdthal, not to set thy
feet upon the burning sand, but keep them always
close unto the wood."

Silent we came to where spirts forth from the
wood a little streamlet, the redness of which still
makes me shudder. As from the Bulicame issues
a brooklet, which then the sinful women share
among them, so this down across the sand went
along.^ Its bed and both its sloping banks were

1 The Bulicame, a hot spring near Viterbo, much frequented

70 HELL.

made of stone, and tlie margins on the side, where-
by I perceived that the crossing ^ was there.

" Among all else that I have shown to thee,
since we entered through the gate whose threshold
is barred to no one, nothing has been discerned by
thine eyes so notable as is the present stream
which deadens all the flamelets upon it." These
words were of my Leader, wherefore I prayed him,
that he should give me largess of the food for
which he had given me largess of desire.

" In mid sea sits a wasted land," said he then,
"which is named Crete, under whose king the
world of old was chaste. A mountain is there that
of old was glad with waters and with leaves, which
is called Ida; now it is desert, like a thing out-
worn. Rhea chose it of old for the trusty cradle
of her little son, and to conceal him better when
he cried had shoutings made there. Within the
mountain stands erect a great old man, who holds
his shoulders turned towards Damietta, and looks
at Rome as if his mirror. His head is formed of
fine gold, and pure silver are his arms and breast ;
then he is of brass far as to the fork. From there
downward he is all of chosen iron, save that his
right foot is of baked clay, and he stands erect on

as a bath, the use of a portion of which was assigned to "sinfnl

women."

1 The crossing of the breadth of the round of burning sand, on
the way inward toward the next circle.

CANTO XIV. 71

that more than on the other.^ Every part except
the gold is cleft with a fissure that trickles tears,
which collected perforate that cavern. Their course
falls from rock to rock into this valley ; they form
Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon ; then it goes down
through this narrow channel far as where there is
no more descending. They form Cocytus, and
what that pool is, thou shalt see ; therefore here is
it not told."

And I to him, " If the present rill floweth down
thus from our world, why doth it appear to us only
at this rim ? "

And he to me, " Thou knowest that the place is
round, and though thou art come far, ever to the
left descending toward the bottom, not yet hast
thou turned through the whole circle ; wherefore
if a new thing appears to us, it ought not to bring
wonder to thy face."

And I again, "Master, where are Phlegethon
and Lethe found, for of the one thou art silent,
and of the other thou sayest that it is formed by
this rain ? "

" In all thy questions surely thou pleasest me,"

^ This image is taken directly from the dream of Nebuchad-
nezzar (Daniel ii. 31-33). It is the type of the ages of tradition
and history, with its back to the past, its face toward Rome, — the
seat of the Empire and of the Church. The tears of the sin and
sufEering of the generations of man form the rivers of Hell.

72 HELL.

he answered, " but the boiling of the red water
ought truly to solve one that thou askest. Lethe
thou shalt see, but outside of this ditch, there where
souls go to lave themselves when sin repented of is
taken away." Then he said, " Now it is time to
depart from the wood ; take heed that thou come
behind me ; the margins afford way, for they are
not burning, and above them all the vapor is extin-
guished."

CANTO XV.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : of those who have done
violence to Nature. — Brunetto Latini. — Prophecies of mis-
fortune to Dante.

Now one of the hard margins bears us on, and
the fume of the brook overshadows so that it
saves the water and the banks from the fire. As
the Flemings, between Wissant and Bruges, fear-
ing the flood that is blown in upon them, make
the dyke whereby the sea is routed ; and as the
Paduans along the Brenta,. in order to defend their
towns and castles, ere Chiarentana ^ feel the heat,
— in such like were these made, though neither so
high nor so thick had the master, whoever he was,
made them.

We were now so remote from the wood that I
could not have seen where it was thougfli I had
turned me round to look, when we encountered a
troop of souls which was coming along by the
bank, and each of them was looking at us, as at
eve one is wont to look at another under the new

^ The mountain range north of the Brenta, by the floods from
which the river is swollen in the spring.

74 HELL.

moon, and they so sharpened their brows toward
us as the old tailor does on the needle's eye.

Thus gazed at by that company, I was recog-
nized by one who took me by the skirt, and cried
out, " What a marvel ! " And when he stretched
out his arm to me, I fixed my eyes on his baked
aspect so that his scorched visage prevented not
my mind from recognizing him ; and bending down
my own to his face, I answered, " Are you here,
Sir Brunetto ? " ^ And he, " O my son, let it not
displease thee if Brunetto Latini turn a little back
with thee, and let the train go on." I said to him,
" With all my power I pray this of you, and if you
will that I seat myself with you I will do so, if it
pleaseth this one, for I go with him." " O son,"
said he, " whoever of this herd stops for an instant
lies then a hundred years without fanning himself
when the fire smites him ; therefore go onward, I
will come at thy skirts, and then I will rejoin my
band which goeth weeping its eternal sufferings."

^ Brunetto Latini, one of the most learned and able Florentines
of the thirteenth century. He was banished with the other chiefs
of the Guelph party, after the battle of Montaperti, in 1260, and
went to France, where he resided for many years. After his re-
turn to Florence he became Secretary of the Commune, and he
was the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti. His principal
literary work was Li Tresors, written in French, an interesting
compend of the omne scihile. He died in 1290. Dante uses the
plural ' ' you ' ' in addressing him, as a sign of respect.

CANTO XV. 76

I dared not descend from the road to go level
with liim, but I held my head bowed like one who
goes reverently. He began, " What fortune, or
destiny, ere the last day, brings tliee down here ?
and who is this that shows the road ? "

" There above, in the clear life," I answered him,
" I lost myself in a valley, before my time was full.
Only yester morn I turned my back on it ; this one ^
appeared to me as I was returning to it, and he is
leading me homeward along this path."

And he to me : " If thou follow thy star, thou
canst not miss the glorious port, if, in the beautiful
life, I discerned aright. And if I had not so un-
timely died, seeing heaven so benignant unto thee
I would have given cheer unto thy work. But that
ungrateful populace malign which descended from
Fiesole of old,^ and smacks yet of the mountain
and the rock, will hate thee because of thy good
deeds ; and this is right, for among the bitter sorb-

1 Dante never calls Virgil by name in Hell.

'^ After his flight from Rome Catiline betook himself to Fae-
sulae (Fiesole), and here for a time held out against the Roman
forces. The popular tradition ran that, after his defeat, Faesulae
was destroyed, and its people, together with a colony from Rome,
made a settlement on the banks of the Arno, below the mountain
on which Faesulae had stood. The new town was named Fiora,
siccome fosse in fiora edificata, " as though built among flowers,"
but afterwards was called Fiorenza, or Florence. See G. Villani,
Cronica, I. xxxi.-xxxviii.

76 HELL.

trees it is not fitting the sweet fig should bear
fruit. Old report in the world calls them blind ;
it is a people avaricious, envious, and proud ; from
their customs take heed that thou keep thyself
clean. Thy fortune reserves such honor for thee
that one party and the other shall hunger for thee ;
but far from the goat shall be the grass. Let the
Fiesolan beasts make litter of themselves, and
touch not the plant, if any spring still upon their
dungheap, in which may live again the holy seed
of those Romans who remained there when it be-
came the nest of so much malice."

"If all my entreaty were fulfilled," replied I to
him, " you would not yet be placed in banishment
from human nature ; for in my mind is fixed, and
now fills my heart, the dear, good, paternal image
of you, when in the world hour by hour you taught
me how man makes himself eternal : and in what
gratitude I hold it, so long as I live, it behoves
that on my tongue should be discerned. That
which you tell me of my course I write, and re-
serve it to be glossed with other text,^ by a Lady,
who will know how, if I attain to her. Thus much
would I have manifest to you : if only that my con-
science chide me not, for Fortune, as she will, I am

1 The prophecy by Ciacco of the fall of Dante's party, Canto
vi., and that by Farinata of Dante's exile, Canto x., which Virgil
had told should be made clear to him by Beatrice.

CANTO XV. 77

ready. Such earnest is not strange unto my ears ;
therefore let Fortune turn her wheel as pleases
her, and the churl his mattock." ^

My Master then upon his right side turned him-
self back, and looked at me ; then said, " He lis-
tens well who notes it."

Not the less for this do I go on speaking with
Sir Brunetto, and I ask, who are his most known
and most eminent companions. And he to me,
" To know of some is good, of the others silence
will be laudable for us, for the time would be short
for so much speech. In brief, know that all were
clerks, and great men of letters, and of great fame,
defiled in the world with one same sin. Priscian
goes along with that disconsolate crowd, and Fran-
cesco of Accorso;2 ^^^ ^hou mightest also have
seen, hadst thou had desire of such scurf, him who
by the Servant of Servants was translated from
Arno to Bacchiglione, where he left his ill-strained
nerves.3 Of more would I tell, but the going on
and the speech cannot be longer, for I see yonder
a new cloud rising from the sand. Folk come with

1 The churl of Fiesole.

2 Priscian, the famous grammarian of the sixth century ; Fran-
cis of Accorso, a jurist of great repute, who taught at Oxford
and at Bologna, and died in 1294.

3 Andrea de' Mozzi, bishop of Florence, translated by Boniface
VIII. to Vicenza, near which the Bacchiglione runs. He died in
1296.

78 HELL.

whom I must not be. Let my Tesoro be com-
mended to thee, in which I still am living, and
more I ask not."

Then he turned back, and seemed of those who
run at Verona for the green cloth ^ across the plain,
and of these he seemed the one that wins, and not
he that loses.

^ The prize in the annual races at Verona.

CANTO XVI.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : of those who have
done violence to Nature. — Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldo-
brandi and Jacopo Rusticucci. — The roar of Phlegethon as
it pours downward. — The cord thrown into the abyss.

Now was I in a place where the resounding of
the water that was falling into the next circle was
heard, like that hum which the beehives make,
when three shades together separated themselves,
running, from a troop that was passing under the
rain of the bitter torment. They came toward us,
and each cried out, '' Stop thou, that by thy garb
seemest to us to be one from our wicked city ! "

Ah me ! what wounds I saw upon their limbs,
recent and old, burnt in by the flames. Still it
grieves me for them but to remember it.

To their cries my Teacher gave heed ; he turned
his face toward me, and " Now wait," he said ; " to
these one should be courteous, and were it not for
the fire that the nature of the place shoots out, I
should say that haste better befitted thee than

them."

They began again, when we stopped, the old

80 HELL.

verse, and when tliey had reached us they made
a wheel of themselves all three. As champions
naked and oiled are wont to do, watching their
hold and their vantage, before they come to blows
and thrusts, thus, wheeling, each directed his face
on me, so that his neck in contrary direction to his
feet was making continuous journey.

" Ah ! if the misery of this shifting sand bring
us and our prayers into contempt," began one,
" and our darkened and blistered aspect, let our
fame incline thy mind to tell us who thou art, that
so securely plantest thy living feet in Hell. He
whose tracks thou seest me tram23le, though he go
naked and singed, was of greater state than thou
thinkest. Grandson he was of the good Gual-
drada ; his name was Guidoguerra, and in his life
he did much with counsel, and with the sword.
The other who treads the sand behind me is Teg-
ghiaio Aldobrandi, whose fame should be welcome
in the world above. And I, who am set with them
on the cross, was Jacopo Rusticucci,^ and surely
my savage wife more than aught else injures me."

^ Concerning Teg-g-hiaio and Rusticueci Dante had enquired of
Ciacco, Canto vi. They and Guido Guerra were illustrious citi-
zens of Florence in the thirteenth century. Their deeds are re-
corded by Villani and Ricordano Malespini. The good Gual-
drada, famed for her beauty and her modesty, was the daughter
of Messer Bellineione Berti, referred to in Cantos xv. and xvi. of
Paradiso as one of the early worthies of the city. See G. Vil-
lani, Cronica. V. xxxvii.

CANTO XVI. 81

If I could have been sheltered from the fire I
would have cast myself below amoug them, and
I think that the Teacher would have permitted it ;
but because I should have been scorched and baked,
fear overcame my good will that made me greedy
to embrace them. Then I began : " Not contempt,
but grief, did your condition fix within me, so that
slowly wi]l it be all divested, soon as this my Lord
said words to me by which I understood that such
folk as ye are might be coming. Of your city I
am ; and always your deeds and honored names
have I retraced and heard with affection. I leave
the gall and go for the sweet fruits promised me
by my veracious Leader ; but far as the centre
needs must I first descend."

" So may thy soul long direct thy limbs," replied
he then, " and so may thy fame shine after thee,
say if courtesy and valor abide in our city as they
were wont, or if they have quite gone forth from
it ? For Guglielmo Borsiere,^ who is in torment
with us but short while, and goes yonder with our
companions, afflicts us greatly with his words."

" The new people and the sudden gains ^ have
generated pride and excess, Florence, in thee, so

1 Nothing is known from contemporary record of Borsiere, but
Boccaccio tells a story of him in the Decameron, giorn. i. nov. 8.

2 Florence had grown rapidly in population and in wealth dur-
ing the last years of the thirteenth century.

82 HELL.

that already thou weepest thereat." Thus cried I
with face uplifted. And the three, who understood
that for answer, looked one at the other, as men
look at hearing truth.

" If other times it costeth thee so little," replied
they all, " to satisfy others, happy thou that thus
speakest at thy pleasure. Therefore, if thou es-
capest from these dark places, and returnest to
see again the beautiful stars, when it shall rejoice
thee to say, ' I have been,' mind thou speak of
us unto the people." Then they broke the wheel,
and in flying their swift legs seemed wings.

Not an amen could have been said so quickly as
they had disappeared ; wherefore it seemed good
to my Master to depart. I followed him, and we
had gone little way before the sound of the water
was so near to us, that had we spoken we scarce
had heard. As that river on the left slope of
the Apennine, which, the first from Monte Yeso
toward the east, has its proper course, — which is
called Acquacheta up above, before it sinks valley-
ward into its low bed, and at Forli no longer has
that name,^ — reverberates from the alp in falling
with a single leap there above San Benedetto,

^ At Forli the river is called the Montone ; it was the first of
the rivers on the left of the Apennines that had its course to the
sea ; the others before it being' tributaries of the Po, which rises
on Monte Veso.

CANTO XVI. 83

where tliere ought to be shelter for a thousand ; i
thus down from a precipitous bank we found that
dark-tinted water resounding, so that in short while
it would have hurt the ears.

I had a cord girt around me, and with it I had
once thought to take the leopard of the dappled
skin. 2 After I had loosed it wholly from me, even
as my Leader had commanded me, I reached it to
him wound up and coiled. Whereon he turned
toward the right, and somewhat far from the edge
threw it down into that deep abyss. " And surely
some strange thing must needs respond," said I to
myself, " to the strange signal which the Master so
follows with his eye."

Ah ! how cautious men ought to be near those
who see not only the act, but with their wisdom
look within the thoughts. He said to me : " Soon
will come up that which I await, and what thy
thought is dreaming must soon discover itseK unto
thy sight."

To that truth which has the aspect of falsehood
ought one always to close his lips so far as he can,

1 These last words are obscure, and none of the commentators
explain them satisfactorily.

2 The leopard of the dappled skin, which had often turned
hack Dante from the Mountain to the Dark Wood (see Canto i.) ;
the type of sensual sin. The cord is the type of religious asceti-
cism, of which the poet no longer has need. The meaning of its
use as a signal is not apparent.

84 HELL.

because without fault it causes shame ; ^ but here I
cannot be silent, and by the notes of this comedy,
Keader, I swear to thee, — so may they not be void
of lasting grace, — that I saw through that thick
and dark air a shape come swimming upwards mar-
velous to every steadfast heart ; like as he returns
who 2'oes down sometimes to loose an anchor that
grapples either a rock or other thing that in the
sea is hid, who stretches upward, and draws in his
feet.

1 Because the narrator is falsely taxed witli falsehood.

CANTO XYII.

Third round of the Seventh Circle : of those who have
done violence to Art. — Geryon. — The Usurers. — Descent
to the Eighth Circle.

" Behold the wild beast with the pointed tail,
that passes mountains, and breaks walls and weap-
ons; behold him that infects all the world." ^ Thus
began my Leader to speak to me ; and he beck-
oned to him that he should come to shore near
the end of the trodden marbles.^ And that loath-
some image of fraud came onward, and landed
his head and his body, but drew not his tail upon
the bank. His face was the face of a just man
(so benignant was its skin outwardly), and of a
serpent all the trunk beside ; he had two paws,
hairy to the armpits ; his back and breast and
both his sides were painted with nooses and circles.
With more colors of woof and warp Tartars or

^ Dante makes Geryon the type and image of Fraud, thus
allegorizing' the triple form {forma tricorporis umbrae : Aeneid vi.
289 ; tergemini Geryonae ; Id. viii. 292) ascribed to him by the
ancient poets.

2 The stony margin of Phlegethon, on which Virgil and Dante
have crossed the sand.

86 HELL.

Turks never made cloth, nor were sucli webs woven
by Arachne.

As sometimes boats lie on tlie shore, so that they
are partly in water and partly on the ground, and
as yonder, among the gluttonous Germans, the
beaver settles himself to make his war,^ so lay that
worst of beasts upon the rim that closes in the
sand with stone. In the void all his tail was quiv-
ering, twisting upwards its venomous fork, which
like a scorpion's armed the point.

The Leader said : " Now needs must our way
bend a little toward that wicked beast that is
couching there." Therefore we descended on the
right hand and took ten steps upon the verge quite
to avoid the sand and flame. And when we had
come to it, I see, a little farther on, people sitting
upon the sand near to the void place.^

Here the Master said to me : " In order that
thou mayst bear away complete experience of this
round, now go and see their condition. Let thy
discourse there be brief. Till thou returnest I will
speak with this one, that he may concede to us his
strong shoulders."

^ With his tail in the water to catch his prey, as was popularly
believed.

^ These people are the third class of sinners punished in this
round of the Seventh Circle, those who have done violence to Art,
the usurers. (See Canto xi.)

CANTO XVIL 87

Thus, still up by the extreme head of that
seventh circle, all alone, I went where the sad peo-
ple were sitting. Through the eyes their woe was
bursting forth. This way and that they helped
with their hands, sometimes against the vapors,^
and sometimes against the hot soil. Not otherwise
do the dogs in summer, now with muzzle, now with
paw, when they are bitten either by fleas, or flies,
or gadflies. When I set my eyes on the face of
some on whom the woeful fire falls, not one of
them I recognized ; ^ but I perceived that from the
neck of each was hanging a pouch, that had a cer-
tain color and a certain device,^ and thereupon it
seems their eyes feed. And as I looking come
among them, I saw upon a yellow purse azure that
had the face and bearing of a lion.* Then as the
current of my look proceeded I saw another, red
as blood, display a goose whiter than butter. And
one, who had his little white bag marked with an
azure and pregnant sow,^ said to me, " What art
thou doing in this ditch ? Now^ get thee gone, and

^ The falling- flames.

2 Dante thus indicates that they were not worthy to be known.

^ The blazon of their arms, by which Dante learns who they
are.

* This was the device of the Gianfigliazzi, a Guelph family of
Florence ; the next was that of the Ubriachi, Ghibellines, also of
Florence.

^ Arms of the Scrovigni of Padua.

88 HELL.

since thou art still alive, know that my neighbor,
Vitaliano, will sit here at my left side. With these
Florentines am I, a Pacluan ; often they stun my
ears shouting, ' Let the sovereign cavalier come
who will bring the pouch with the three goats.' " ^
Then he twisted his mouth, and stuck out his
tongue, like an ox that licks his nose.

And I, fearing lest longer stay might vex him
who had admonished me to stay but little, turned
back from these weary souls. I found my Leader,
who had already mounted upon the croup of the
fierce animal, and he said to me, " Now be strong
and courageous ; henceforth the descent is by such
stairs ; ^ mount thou in front, for I wish to be be-
tween, so that the tail cannot do thee harm."

As is he who hath the shivering fit of the quar-
tan so near that his nails are already livid, and he
is all of a tremble only looking at the shade, such I
became at these words uttered. But his reproaches
wrought shame in me, which in presence of a good
lord makes a servant strong.

1 seated myself on those huge shoulders. I
wished to speak thus, "Take heed that thou em-
brace me," but the voice came not as I had thought.

^ One Giovanni Buiamonte of Florence, "who surpassed all
others of the time in usury," says Benvenuto da Imola.

2 Not by foot, nor by boat as heretofore, but cai'ried by living
ministers of Hell.

CANTO XVII. 89

But he who other time had succored me, in other
peril, soon as I mounted, clasped and sustained
me with his arms: and he said, " Geryon, move
on now ; let the circles be wide, and the descend-
ino- slow; consider the strange burden that thou

hast."

As a little vessel goeth from its place, backward,
backward, so he thence withdrew ; and when he
felt himself quite at play, he turned his tail to
where his breast had been, and moved it, stretched
out like an eel, and with his paws gathered the air
to himself. Greater fear I do not think there was
when Phaeton abandoned the reins, whereby heaven,
as is still apparent, was scorched ; nor when the
wretched Icarus felt his flanks unf eathering through
the melting of the wax, his father shouting to him,
"111 way thou boldest," than mine was, when I
saw that I was in the air on every side, and saw
every sight vanished, except that of the beast. He
goes along swimming very slowly, wheels and de-
scends, but I perceive it not, save by the wind upon
my face, and from below.

I heard now on the right hand the gorge making
beneath us a horrible roar ; wherefore I stretch
out my head, with my eyes downward. Then I be-
came more afraid to lean over, because I saw fires
and heard laments ; whereat I, trembling, wholly
cowered back. And I saw then, what I had not

90 HELL.

seen before, the descending and the wheeling, by
the great evils that were drawing near on diverse
sides.

As the falcon that has been long on wing, that,
without sight of lure or bird, makes the falconer
say, " Ah me, thou stoopest ! " — descends weary,
there whence he had set forth swiftly, through
a hundred circles, and lights far from his master,
disdainful and sullen ; so Geryon set us at the bot-
tom, at the very foot of the scarped rock, and, dis-
burdened of our persons, darted away as arrow
from the bowstring.

CANTO XYIII.

Eighth Circle : the first pit : panders and seducers. —
Vencdico Caccianimico. — Jason. — Second pit : false flat-
terers. — Alessio Interminei. — Thais.

Theke Is a place in Hell called Malebolge, all
of stone of tlie color of iron, as is the encircling
wall that surrounds it. Kiglit in the middle of
this field malign yawns an abyss exceeding wide
and deep, the structure of which I will tell of in its
place. That belt, therefore, which remains between
the abyss and the foot of the high bank is circu-
lar, and it has its ground divided into ten valleys.
Such an aspect as where, for guard of the walls,
many moats encircle castles, the place where they
are presents, such i?nage did these make here. And
as in such strongholds from their thresholds to the
outer bank are little bridges, so from the base of
the precipitous wall started crags which traversed
the dykes and the moats far as the abyss that col-
lects and cuts them off.

In this place, shaken off from the back of Ge-
ryon, we found ourselves; and the Poet held to
the left, and I moved on behind. On the right

92 HELL.

hand I saw new sorrow, new torments, and new
scourgers, with which the first pit^ was replete.
At its bottom were the sinners naked. This side
the middle they came facing us ; on the farther side
with us, but with swifter pace. As the Romans,
because of the great host in the year of Jubilee,^
have taken means upon the bridge for the passage
of the people, who on one side all have their front
toward the Castle,^ and go to Saint Peter's, and on
the other toward the Mount.^

Along the gloomy rock, on this side and on that,
I saw horned demons with great scourges, who were
beating them cruelly from behind. Ah ! how they
made them lift their heels at the first blows ; truly
not one waited for the second, or the third.

While I was going on, my eyes encountered
one, and I said straightway, " Ere now for sight of
him I have not fasted ; " wherefore to shape him
out I stayed my feet, and the sweet Leader stopped
with me, and assented to my going somewhat back.
And that scourged one thought to conceal himself
by lowering his face, but little it availed him, for
I said : " O thou that castest thine eye upon the
ground, if the features that thou bearest are not

1 Bolgia, literally, budget, purse, sack, here used for circular
valley, or pit.

2 The year 1299-1300, from Christmas to Easter.

3 Of Sant' Angelo. * The Capitoline.

CANTO XV III. 93

false, thou art Venedico Caccianimico ; but what
brings thee unto such pungent sauces ? "

And he to me, " Unwillingly I tell it, but thy
clear speech compels me, which makes me recollect
the olden world. I was he who brought the beau-
tiful Ghisola 1 to do the will of the Marquis, how-
ever the shameful tale may be reported. And not
the only Bolognese do I weep here, nay, this place
is so full of them, that so many tongues are not
now taught between Savena and the Reno to say
siioa ; ^ and if of this thou wishest pledge or testi-
mony, bring to mind our avaricious heart." As
he spoke thus a demon struck him with his scourge
and said, " Begone, ruffian, here are no women for

coining."

I rejoined my Escort ; then with few steps we
came to where a crag jutted from the bank.^
Easily enough we ascended it, and turning to the
rio-ht * upon its ridge, from those eternal circles we
departed.

1 His own sister; the unseemly tale is known only through
Dante and his fourteenth-century commentators, and the latter,
while agreeing that the Marquis was one o£ the Esti of Ferrara,
do not agree as to which of them he was.

'^ Bologna lies between the Savena and the Reno ; sipa is the
Bolognese form of sia, or si.

3 Forming a bridge, thrown like an arch across the pit.

■* The course of the Poets, which has mostly been to the left
through the upper Circles, is now generally to proceed straight

94 HELL.

When we were there where it opens below to
give passage to the scourged, the Leader said,
" Stop, and let the sight strike on thee of these
other miscreants, of whom thou hast not yet seen
the face, because they have gone along in die same
direction with us."

From the ancient bridge we looked at the train
that was coming toward us from the other side,
and which the whip in like manner drives on. The
good Master, without my asking, said to me, " Look
at that great one who is coming, and seems not to
shed a tear for pain. What royal aspect he still
retains ! He is Jason, who by courage and by wit
despoiled the Colchians of their ram. He passed
by the isle of Lemnos, after the undaunted women
pitiless had given all their males to death. There
with tokens and with ornate words he deceived
Hypsipyle, the maiden, who first had deceived all
the rest. There he left her pregnant, and alone ;
such sin condemns him to such torment ; and also
for Medea is vengeance done. With him goes
whoso in such wise deceives. And let this suffice
to know of the first valley, and of those that it
holds in its fangs."

across the lower Circles where Fraud is punished. They had
been going to the left at the foot of the precipice, and conse-
quently turn to the right to ascend the bridge. The allegorical
intention in the direction of their course is evident.

CANTO XVIII. 95

Now we were wliere tlie narrow path sets across
the second dyke, and makes of it shouMers for an-
other arch. Here we heard people moaning in the
next pit, and snorting with their muzzles, and with
their palms beating themselves. The banks were
encrusted with a mould because of the breath from
below that sticks on them, and was making quarrel
with the eyes and with the nose. The bottom is so
hollowed out that no place sufficeth us for seeing
it, without mounting on the crest of the arch where
the crag rises highest. Hither we came, and thence,
down in the ditch, I saw people plunged in an ex-
crement that seemed as if it proceeded from human

privies.

And while I am searching down there with my
eye, I saw one with his head so foul with ordure
that it was not apparent whether he were layman
or clerk. He shouted to me, " Why art so greedy
to look more at me than at the other filthy ones ? "
And I to him, " Because, if I remember rightly, ere
now I have seen thee with dry hair, and thou art
Alessio Interminei of Lucca ^ ; therefore I eye thee
more than all the rest." And he then, beating his
pate, "Down here those flatteries wherewith my
tongue was never cloyed have submerged me."

Hereupon my Leader, " Mind thou push thy sight
a little farther forward so that with thine eyes thou

1 Of him nothing is known but what these words telL

96 HELL.

mayest quite reach the face of that dirty and dis-
heveled creature, who is scratching herself there
with her nasty nails, and now is crouching down and
now standing on foot. She is Thais the prostitute,
who answered her paramour when he said, ' Have I
great thanks from thee ? ' — ' Nay, marvelous.' " ^
And herewith let our sight be satisfied.

^ These words are derived from Terence, Eunuclius, act iii.
sc. 1.

CANTO XIX.

Eighth Circle : third pit : simonists. — Pope Nicholas III.

Oh Simon Magus ! Oh ye his wretched follow-
ers, who, rapacious, do prostitute for gold and silver
the things of God that ought to be the brides of
righteousness, now it behoves for 5^011 the trumpet
sound, since ye are in the third pit !

Already were we come to the next tomb,^
mounted on that part of the crag which just above
the middle of the ditch hangs plumb. Oh Supreme
Wisdom, how great is the art that Thou displayest
in Heaven, on Earth, and in the Evil World I and
how justly doth Thy Power distribute I

I saw along the sides, and over the bottom, the
livid stone full of holes all of one size, and each
was circular. They seemed to me not less wide
nor larger than those that in my beautiful Saint
John are made as place for the baptizers ; ^ one of

^ The next bolgia or pit.

2 "My beautiful Saint John " is the Baptistery at Florence. In
Dante's time the infants, born during the year, were all here bap-
tized by immersion, mostly on the day of St. John Baptist, the
24th of June. There was a large circular font in the middle of

98 HELL.

which, not many years ago, I broke for sake of one
who was stifling in it ; and be this the seal to un-
deceive all men. Forth from the mouth of each
protruded the feet of a sinner, and his legs up to
the calf, and the rest was within. The soles of all
were both on fire, wherefore their joints quivered
so violently that they would have snapped withes
and bands. As the flaming of things oiled is wont
to move only on the outer surface, so was it there
from the heels to the toes.

'' Who is he. Master, that writhes, quivering
more than the others his consorts," said I, " and
whom a ruddier flame is sucking ? " And he to
me, " If thou wilt that I carry thee down there by
that bank which slopes the most,^ from him thou
shalt know of himself and of his wrongs." And
I, " Whatever pleaseth thee even so is good to me.
Thou art Lord, and knowest that I part me not
from thy will, and thou knowest that which is un-
spoken."

Then we went upon the fourth dyke, turned, and
descended on the left hand, down to the bottom
pierced with holes, and narrow. And the good

the church, and around it in its marble wall were four cylindrical
standing-'places for the priests, closed by doors, to protect them
from the pressure of tlie crowd.

1 The whole of the Eighth circle slopes toward the centre, so
that the inner wall of each holgia is lower, and is less sharply in-
clined than the outer.

CANTO XIX. 99

Master set me not down yet from his haunch, till
he brought me to the cleft of him who was thus
lamenting with his shanks.

" O whoe'er thou art, that keepest upside down,
sad soul, planted like a stake," I began to say,
" speak, if thou canst." I was standing like the
friar who confesses the perfidious assassin,^ who,
after he is fixed, recalls him, in order to delay his
death.

And he 2 cried out, " Art thou already standing
there ? Art thou already standing there, Boniface ?
By several years the record lied to me. Art thou
so quickly sated with that having, for which thou
didst not fear to seize by guile the beautiful Lady ,3
and then to do her outrage ? "

Such I became as those that, not comprehending
that which is replied to them, stand as if mocked,
and know not what to answer.

Then Virgil said, " Tell him quickly, I am not he,
I am not he thou thinkest." And I answered as was
enjoined on me ; whereat the spirit quite twisted

1 Such criminals were not infrequently punished by being set,
head downwards, in a hole in which they were buried alive.

2 This is Nicholas III., pope from 1277 to 1280 ; he takes Dante
to be Boniface VIII., but Boniface was not to die till 1303. Cora-
pare what Nicholas says of " the record " with Farinata's state-
ment, in Canto X, concerning the foresight of the damned.

3 The Church, to which Boniface did outrage in many forms ;
but worst by his simoniacal practices.

100 HELL.

his feet. Thereafter, sighing and with tearful
voice, he said to me, " Then what dost thou require
of me ? If to know who I am concerneth thee
so much that thou hast crossed the bank therefor,
know that I was vested with the Great Mantle ;
and verily I was a son of the She-Bear,^ so eager
to advance the cubs, that up there I put wealth, and
here myself, into the purse. Beneath my head are
stretched the others that preceded me in simony,
flattened throusch the fissures of the rock. There be-
low shall I likewise sink, when he shall come whom
I believed thou wert, then when I put to thee the
sudden question ; but already the time is longer that

1 have cooked my feet, and that I have been thus
upside down, than he will stay planted with red
feet ; for after him will come, of uglier deed, from
westward, a shepherd without law,^ such as must
cover him and me again. A new Jason will he be,
of whom it is read in Maccabees ; ^ and as to that
one his king was compliant, so unto this he who
rules France shall be." ^

^ Nicholas was of the Orsini family.

^ Clement V., who will come from Avig-non, and in a little more
than ten years after the death of Boniface. Nicholas had already
" cooked his feet " for twenty years. The prophecy of the death
of Clement after a shorter time affords an indication that this
canto was not written until after 1814, the year of his death.

^ The story of Jason, " that un^-odly wretch and no hig-h-priest "
who bought the high-priesthood from King Antiochus, is told in

2 Maccabees iv. Its application to the Pope was plain.
* ''He who rules France " was Philip the Fair.

CANTO XIX. 101

I know not if here I was too audacious that I
only answered him in this strain, " Pray now tell
me how much treasure our Lord desired of Saint
Peter before he placed the keys in his keeping ?
Surely he required nothing save ' Follow me.'
Nor did Peter or the others require of Matthias
gold or silver, when he was chosen to the j)lace
which the guilty soul had lost. Therefore stay thou,
for thou art rightly punished, and guard well the
ill-gotten money that against Charles ^ made thee to
be bold. And were it not that reverence for the
Supreme Keys that thou heldest in the glad life
still forbiddeth me, I would use words still more
grave ; for your avarice saddens the world, tram-
pling down the good and exalting the bad. Of you
shepherds the Evangelist was aware, when she that
sitteth upon the waters was seen by him to forni-
cate with kings : that woman that was born with
the seven heads, and from the ten horns had evi-
dence, so long as virtue pleased her spouse.^ Ye
have made you a god of gold and silver : and what

1 Charles of Anjou, of whom Nicholas III. was the enemy.
He was charged with having been bribed to support the attempt
to expel the French from Sicily, which began with the Sicilian
Vespers in 1282.

2 Dante deals freely with the figures of the Apocalypse : Rev-
elation xvii. The woman here stands for the Church ; her seven
heads may be interpreted as the Seven Sacraments, and her ten
horns as the Commandments ; her spouse is the Pope.

102 HELL.

difference is there between you and the idolater
save that he worships one and ye a hundred ? Ah
Constantine ! of how much ill was mother, not thy
conversion, but that dowry which the first rich
/ather received from thee ! " -^

And, while I was singing these notes to him,
ticther anger or conscience stung him, he vio-
lently quivered with both feet. I believe, forsooth,
that it had pleased my Leader, with so contented
look he listened ever to the sound of the true words
uttered. Thereupon with both his arms he took
me, and when he had me wholly on his breast, re-
mounted on the way by which he had descended.
Nor did he tire of holding me clasped till he had
borne me up to the summit of the arch which is
the passage from the fourth to the fifth dyke.
Here softly he laid down his burden, softly be-
cause of the ragged and steep crag, that would be
a difficult pass for goats. Thence another great
valley was discovered to me.

1 The reference is to tlie so-called Donation of Constantine, the
reality of which .was generally accepted till long after Dante's
time.

CANTO XX.

Eighth Circle : fourth pit : diviners, soothsayers, and
magicians. — Amphiaraus. — Tiresias. — Aruns. — Manto.
— Eurypylus. — Michael Scott. — Asdente.

Of a new punishment needs must I make verses,
and give material to the twentieth canto of the
first lay, which is of the submerged.^

I was now wholly set on looking into the dis-
closed depth that was bathed with tears of an-
guish, and I saw folk coming, silent and weeping,
through the circular valley, at the pace at which
litanies go in this world. As my sight descended
deeper among them, each appeared marvelously
distorted from the chin to the beginning of the
chest ; for toward their reins their face was turned,
and they must needs go backwards, because they
were deprived of looking forward. Perchance
sometimes by force of palsy one has been thus
completely twisted, but I never saw it, nor do I
think it can be.

So may God let thee, Eeader, gather fruit from
thy reading, now think for thyself how I could

1 Plunged into the misery of HelL

104 HELL.

keep my face dry, when near by I saw our im-
age so contorted that the weepmg of the eyes
bathed the buttocks along the cleft. Truly I wept,
leaning on one of the rocks of the hard crag, so
that my Guide said to me, " Art thou also one of
the fools ? Here pity liveth when it is quite dead.^
Who is more wicked than he who feels compassion
at the Divine Judgment ? Lift up thy head, lift
up, and see him ^ for whom the earth opened be-
fore the eyes of the Thebans, whereon they shouted
all, ' Whither art thou rushing, Amphiaraus ?
Why dost thou leave the war ? ' And he stopped
not from falling headlong down far as Minos, who
seizes hold of every one. Look, how he has made a
breast of his shoulders ! Because he wished to see
too far before him, he looks behind and makes a
backward path.

" See Tiresias,^ who changed his semblance, when
from a male he became a female, his members all
of them being transformed ; and afterwards was

1 It is impossible to g-ive the full significance of Dante's words
in a literal translation, owing to the double meaning of pieta in

the original

S'

Qui vive la pieta quando e ben morta.

That is : " Here liveth piety when pity is quite dead."

2 One of the seven kings who besieged Thebes, augur and

prophet. Dante found his story in Statins, Thebais, viii. 84.
^ The Theban soothsayer. Dante had learned of him from

Ovid., Metam., iii. 320 sqq., as well as from Statius.

CANTO XX. 105

oblisred to strike once more the two entwined ser-
pents with his rod, ere he could regain his mascu-
line plumage. Aruns ^ is he that to this one's belly
has his back, who on the mountains of Luni (where
grubs the Carrarese who dwell beneath), amid
white marbles, had a cave for his abode, whence
for looking at the stars and the sea his view was
not cut off.

" And she who with her loose tresses covers her
breasts, which thou dost not see, and has on that
side all her hairy skin, was Manto,^ who sought
through many lands, then settled there where I
was born ; whereof it pleases me that thou listen a
little to me. After her father had departed from
life, and the city of Bacchus had become enslaved,
long while she wandered through the world. Up
in fair Italy lies a lake, at foot of the alp that
shuts in Germany above Tyrol, and it is called
Benaco.^ Through a thousand founts, I think,
and more, between Garda and Val Camonica, the
Apennine is bathed by the water which settles in
that lake. Midway is a place where the Trentine
Pastor and he of Brescia and the Veronese might

1 An Etruscan haruspex of whom Luean tells, —

Aruns incoluit desertae moenia Lunae.

Phars. i. 586.

2 The daughter of Tiresias, of whom Statius, Ovid, and Virgil
all tell.

^ Now Lago di Garda.

106 HELL.

each give his blessing if he took that road.^ Pes-
chiera, fortress fair and strong, sits to confront
the Brescians and Bergomasques, where the shore
round about is lowest. Thither needs must fall
all that which in the lap of Benaco cannot stay,
and it becomes a river down through the verdant
pastures. Soon as the water gathers head to run,
no lonoer is it called Benaco, but Mincio, far as
Governo, where it falls into the Po. No long
course it hatli before it finds a plain, on which it
spreads, and makes a marsh, and is wont in sum-
mer sometimes to be noisome. Passing that way,
the cruel virgin saw a land in the middle of
the fen without culture and bare of inhabitants.
There, to avoid all human fellowship, she stayed
with her servants to practice her arts, and lived,
and left there her empty body. Afterward the
men who were scattered round about gathered to
that plac^, which was strong because of the fen
which surrounded it. They built the city over
those dead bones, and for her, who first had chosen
the place, they called it Mantua, without other au-
gury. Of old its people were more thick within it,
before tke stupidity of Casalodi had been tricked
by Pinamonte.2 Therefore I warn thee, that if

1 Where the three dioceses meet.

2 The Count of Casalodi, being lord of Mantua about 1276,
gave ear to the treacherous counsels of Messer Pinaraonte de'
Buonacorsi, and was driven, with his friends, from the city.

CANTO XX. 107

thou ever hearest otherwise the origin of my town,
no falsehood may defraud the truth."

And I, " Master, thy discourses are so certain to
me, and so lay hold on my faith, that the others
would be to me as dead embers. But tell me of
the people who are passing, if thou seest any one of
them worthy of note ; for only unto that my mind
reverts."

Then he said to me, " That one, who from his
cheek stretches his beard upon his dusky shoul-
ders, was an augur when Greece was so emptied of
males that they scarce remained for the cradles,
and with Calchas at Aulis he gave the moment for
cutting the first cable. Eurypylus was his name,
and thus my lofty Tragedy sings him in some
place ; ^ well knowest thou this, who knowest the
whole of it. That other who is so small in the
flanks was Michael Scott,^ who verily knew the
game of magical deceptions. See Guido Bonatti,^
see Asdente,^ who now would wish he had attended

1 Suspensi Eurypylum seitantem oracula Phoebi
Mittimus. ^neid, ii. 112.

^ A wizard of such dreaded fame
That, when in Salamanca's cave
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame.

Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto ii.

3 A famous astrologer of Forli, in the thirteenth century.

* Dante, in the Convito, trattato iv. c. 16, says that if noble

108 HELL.

to his leather and his thread, but late repents. See
the forlorn women who left the needle, the spool,
and the spindle, and became fortune-tellers ; they
wrought spells with herb and with image.

"But come on now, for already Cain with his
thorns ^ holds the confines of both the hemispheres,
and touches the wave below Seville. And already
yesternight was the moon round ; well shouldst
thou remember it, for it did thee no harm some-
times in the deep wood." Thus he spoke to me,
and w^e went on the while.

meant being widely kno\\Ti, then " Asdente, the shoemaker of
Parma, would he more nohle than any of his fellow-citizens."
1 The Man in the Moon, according to an old popular legend.

CANTO XXI.

Eighth Circle : fifth pit : barrators. — A magistrate of ,
Lucca. — The Malebranche. — Parley with them.

So from bridge to bridge we went, speaking
other things, which my Comedy careth not to sing,
and held the summit, when we stopped to see the
next cleft of Malebolge and the next vain lamenta-
tions ; and I saw it wonderfully dark.

As in the Arsenal of the Venetians, in winter,
the sticky pitch for smearing their unsound vessels
is boiling, because they cannot go to sea, and, in-
stead thereof, one builds him a new bark, and one
caulks the sides of that which hath made many a
voyage ; one hammers at the prow, and one at the
stern ; another makes oars, and another twists the
cordage ; and one the foresail and the mainsail
patches, — so, not by fire, but by divine art, a thick
pitch was boiling there below, which belimed the
bank on every side. I saw it, but saw not in it
aught but the bubbles which the boiling raised, and
all of it swelling up and again sinking compressed.

While I was gazing down there fixedly, my Lead-
er, saying, " Take heed ! take heed ! " drew me to

110 HELL.

himself from the place where I was standing. Then
I turned as one who is slow to see what it behoves
him to fly, and whom a sudden fear unnerves, and
delays not to depart in order to see. And I saw
behind us a black devil come running up along the
crag. Ah ! how fell he was in aspect, and how
# rough he seemed to me in action, with wings open,
and light upon his feet ! His shoulder, which was
sharp and high, was laden by a sinner with both
haunches, the sinew of whose feet he held clutched.
" O Malebranche ^ of our bridge," he said, " lo, one
of the Ancients of Saint Zita ! ^ put him under, for
I return again to that city, which I have furnished
well with them; every man there is a barrator,^
except Bonturo : ^ there, for money, of No they
make Ay." He hurled him down, and along the
hard crag he turned, and never mastiff loosed was
in such haste to follow a thief.

That one sank under, and came up back up-
permost, but the demons that had shelter of the
bridge cried out, " Here the Holy Face ^ avails not ;

1 Malebranche means Evil-claws.

2 One of the chief magistrates of Lucca, whose special pro-
tectress was Santa Zita.

2 A corrupt official, selling justice or office for bribes ; in gen-
eral, a peculator or cheat.

* Ironical.

5 An image of Christ upon the cross, ascribed to Nicodemus,
gtill venerated at Lucca.

CANTO XXI. Ill

here one swims otherwise than in the Serchio ; ^
therefore, if thou dost not want our grapples, make
no show above the pitch." Then they struck him
with more than a hundred prongs, and said, '' Cov-
ered must thou dance here, so that, if thou canst,
thou mayst swindle secretly." Not otherwise cooks
make their scullions plunge the meat with their
hooks into the middle of the cauldron, so that it
may not float.

The good Master said to me, " In order that it
be not apparent that thou art here, crouch down
behind a splinter, that may afford some screen to
thee, and at any offense that may be done to me be
not afraid, for I have knowledge of these things,
because another time I was at such a fray."

Then he passed on beyond the head of the
bridge, and when he arrived upon the sixth bank,
he had need of a steadfast front. With such fury
and with such storm, as dogs run out upon the
poor wretch, who of a sudden begs where he stops,
they came forth from under the little bridge, and
turned against him all their forks. But he cried
out, " Be no one of you savage ; ere your hook
take hold of me, let one of you come forward that
he may hear me, and then take counsel as to grap-
pling me." All cried out, "Let Malacoda^ go I "

1 The river that runs not far from Lucca.

2 Wicked taU.

112 HELL.

Whereon one moved, and the rest stood still ; and
he came toward him, saying, " What doth this avail
him ? " '' Thinkest thou, Malacoda, to see me come
here," said my Master, " safe hitherto from all your
hindrances, except by Will Divine and fate propi-
tious ? Let us go on, for in Heaven it is willed
that I show another this savage road." Then
was his arrogance so fallen that he let the hook
drop at his feet, and said to the rest, " Now let him
not be struck."

And my Leader to me, " O thou that sittest
cowering among the splinters of the bridge, securely
now return to me." Whereat I moved and came
swiftly to him. And the devils all pressed forward,
so that I feared they would not keep their compact.
And thus I once saw the foot-soldiers afraid, who
came out under pledge from Caprona,^ seeing
themselves among so many enemies. I drew with
my whole body alongside my Leader, and turned
not mine eyes from their look, which was not good.
They lowered their forks, and, '' Wilt thou that
I touch him on the rump ? " said one to the other,
and they answered, "Yes, see thou nick it for
him." But that demon who was holding speech
with my Leader turned very quickly and said,
*' Stay, stay, Scarmiglione ! "

1 In Aug-ust, 1290, the town of Caprona, on the Arno, surren-
dered to the Florentine troops, with whom Dante was serving.

CANTO XXI. 113

Then he said to us, " Further advance along this
crag there cannot be, because the sixth arch lies all
shattered at the bottom. And if to go forward still
is your pleasure, go on along this rocky bank ; near
by is another crag that affords a way. Yesterday,
five hours later than this hour, one thousand two
hundred and sixty-six years were complete since
the way was broken here.^ I am sending thither-
ward some of these of mine, to sea if any one is
airing himself ; go ye with them, for they will not
be wicked. Come forward, Alichino and Calca-
brina," began he to say, "and thou, Cagnazzo; and
do thou, Barbariccia, guide the ten. Let Libi-
cocco come also, and Draghignazzo, tusked Ciriatto,
and Graffiacane, and Farfarello, and mad Rubi-
cante. Search round about the boiling pitch ; let
these be safe far as the next crag, that all un-
broken goes over these dens."

" O me ! Master, what is it that I see ? " said
I; "pray let us go alone without escort, if thou
knowest the way, for I desire it not for myself. If
thou art as wary as thou art wont to be, dost thou
not see that they show their teeth, and threaten
harm to us with their brows ? " And he to me,
" I would not have thee afraid. Let them grin
on at their will, for they are doing it at the boiled
wretches."

^ By the earthquake at the death of the Saviour.

114 HELL.

Upon the left bank they wheeled round, but first
each had pressed his tongue with his teeth toward
their leader for a signal, and he had made a trum-
pet of his rump.

CANTO XXII.

Eighth Circle: fifth pit: barrators. —Ciampolo of Na-
varre. — Fra Gomita. — Michael Zanche. — Fray of the
Malebranche.

I HAVE seen of old horsemen moving camp, and
beginning- an assault, and making their muster, and
sometimes setting forth on their escape ; I have
seen runners through your land, O Aretines, and I
have seen freebooters starting, tournaments struck
and jousts run, at times with trumpets, and at
times with bells, with drums, and with signals from
strongholds, and with native things and foreign, —
but never with so strange a pipe did I see horse-
men or footmen set forth, or ship by sign of land
or star.

We went along with the ten demons. Ah, the
fell company ! but in the church with saints, and
in the tavern with gluttons. Ever on the pitch
was I intent, to see every aspect of the pit, and of
the people that were burning in it.

As dolphins, when, by the arching of their back,
they give a sign to sailors that they take heed for
the safety of their vessel, so, now and then, to allevi-
ate his pain, one of the sinners showed his back and

116 HELL.

hid in less time than it lightens. And as at the
edge o£ the water of a ditch the frogs stand with
only their muzzle out, so that they conceal their
feet and the rest of their bulk, thus stood on every
side the sinners ; but as Barbariccia approached so
did they draw back beneath the boiling. I saw,
and still my heart shudders at it, one waiting, just
as it happens that one frog stays and another
jumps. And Graffiacane, who was nearest over
against him, hooked him by his pitchy locks, and
drew him up so that he seemed to me an otter. I
knew now the name of every one of them, so had
I noted them when they were chosen, and when
they had called each other I had listened how.
" O Rubicante, see thou set thy claws upon him so
thou flay him," shouted all the accursed ones to-
gether.

And I, "My Master, see, if thou canst, that
thou find out who is the luckless one come into the
hands of his adversaries." My Leader drew up to
his side, asked him whence he was, and he replied,
"I was born in the kingdom of Navarre; my
mother placed me in service of a lord, for she had
borne me to a ribald, destroyer of himself and of
his substance. Afterward I was of the household
of the good King Thibault ; ^ there I set myself to

^ Probably Thibault II., the brother-in-law of St. Louis, who
accorapanied him on his last disastrous crusade, and died on hia
way home in 1270.

CANTO XXII. 117

practice barratry, for which I pay reckoning in
this heat."

And Ciriatto, from whose mouth protruded on
either side a tusk, as in a boar, made him feel how
one of them rips. Among evil cats the mouse had
come ; but Barbariccia clasped him in his arms,
and said, " Stand off, while I enfork him," and to
my Master turned his face. " Ask," said he, '' if
thou desirest to know more from him, before some
other undo him." The Leader, " Now, then, tell of
the other sinners : knowst thou any one under the
pitch who is Italian ? " And he, " I parted short
while since from one who was a neighbor to it ;
would that with him I still were covered so that I
mio'ht not fear claw or hook." And Libicocco said,
" We have borne too much," and seized his arm
with his grapple so that, tearing, he carried off a
sinew of it. Draghignazzo, also, he wished to give
him a clutch down at his legs, whereat their decu-
rion turned round about with evil look.

When they were a little appeased, my Leader,
without delay, asked him who still was gazing at
his wound, " Who was he from whom thou sayest
thou madest ill parting to come to shore ? " And
he replied, " It was Brother Gomita, he of Gallura,^

1 Gallura, one of the four divisions of Sardinia, called judica-
tures, made by the Pisans, after their conquest of the island. The
lord of Gomita was the gentle Judge Nino, whom Dante meets in
Purgatory. Gomita was hung for his frauds.

118 HELL.

vessel of all fraud, who lield the enemies of his
lord in hand, and dealt so with them that they all
praise him for it. Money he took, and let them
smoothly off, so he says ; and in other offices be-
sides he was no little barrator, but sovereign. With
him frequents Don Michael Zanche of Logodoro,^
and in talking of Sardinia their tongues feel not
weary. O me ! see ye that other who is grinning :
I would say more, but I fear lest he is making
ready to scratch my itch." And the grand provost,
turning to Farfarello, who was rolling his eyes as
if to strike, said, '^ Get thee away, wicked bird ! "

" If you wish to see or to hear Tuscans or Lom-
bards," thereon began again the frightened one,
" I will make them come ; but let the Malebranche
stand a little withdrawn, so that they may not be
afraid of their vengeance, and I, sitting in this very
place, for one that I am, will make seven of them
come, when I shall whistle as is our wont to do
whenever one of us comes out." Cagnazzo at this
speech raised his muzzle, shaking his head, and
said, " Hear the knavery he has devised for throw-
ins: himself under ! " AV hereon he who had snares
in great plenty answered, " Too knavish am I, when
I procure for mine own companions greater sor-

1 Logodoro was another of the judicatures of Sardinia. Don
Michael Zanche was a noted man, but of his special sins little or
nothing has been recorded by the chroniclers.

CANTO XXII, 119

row." Allcliino held not in, and, in opposition to
the others, said to him, " If thou dive, I will not
come behind thee at a gallop, but I will beat my
wings above the pitch ; let the height be left, and
be the bank a shield, to see if thou alone availest
more than we."

O thou that readest ! thou shalt hear new sport.
Each turned his eyes to the other side, he first
who had been most averse to doing it. The Na-
varrese chose well his time, fixed his feet on the
ground, and in an instant leaped, and from their
purpose freed himself. At this, each of them was
pricked with shame, but he most who was the cause
of the loss ; wherefore he started and cried out,
*' Thou art caught." But little it availed, for wings
could not outstrip fear. The one went under, and
the other, flying, turned his breast upward. Not
otherwise the wild duck on a sudden dives when
the falcon comes close, and he returns up vexed
and baffled. Calcabrina, enraged at the flout,
kept flying behind him, desirous that the sinner
should escape, that he might have a scuffle ; and
when the barrator had disappeared he turned his
talons upon his companion, and grappled with him
above the ditch. But the other was indeed a spar-
rowhawk full grown to gripe him well, and both
fell into the midst of the boiling pool. The heat
was a sudden ungrappler, but nevertheless there

120 HELL.

was no rising from it, they had their wings so glued.
Barbariccia, grieving with the rest of his troop,
made four of them fly to the other side with all
their forks, and very quickly, this side and that,
they descended to their post. They stretched out
their hooks toward the belimed ones, who were
already baked within the crust : and we left them
thus embroiled.

CANTO XXIII.

Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit. — The sixth
pit : hypocrites, in cloaks of gilded lead. — Jovial Friars. —
Caiaphas. — Annas. — Frate Catalan©.

Silent, alone, and without company, we went
on, one before, the other behind, as the Minor friars
go along the way. My thought was turned by the
present brawl upon the fable of ^sop, in which he
tells of the frog and the mole ; for now and this
instant are not more alike than the one is to the
other, if beginning and end are rightly coupled by
the attentive mind.^ And as one thought bursts
out from another, so from that then sprang another
which made my first fear double. I reflected in
this wise : These through us have been flouted,
and with such harm and mock as I believe must

1 " Sed dices forsan, lector," says Benvenuto da Imola, " nescio
per me videre quoniodo istae duae fictiones habeant inter se tan-
tam convenientam. Ad quod respondeo, quod passus vere est
fortis." The point seems to be that, the frog having deceitfully
brought the mole to trouble and death, the mole declares, " me
vindicabit major," and the eagle swoops down and devours the
frog as well as the dead mole. The comparison is not very close
except in the matter of anticipated vengeance.

122 HELL.

vex them greatly ; if anger to ill-will be added,
they will come after us more merciless than the
dog upon the leveret which he snaps.

Already I was feeling my hair all bristling with
fear, and was backwards intent, when I said, " Mas-
ter, if thou concealest not thyself and me speedily,
I am afraid of the Malebranche ; we have them
already behind us, and I so imagine them that I
already feel them." And he, " If I were of leaded
glass,^ I should not draw thine outward image
more quickly to me than thine inward I receive.
Even now came thy thoughts among mine, with
similar action and with similar look, so that of
both one sole design I made. If it be that the
rio'ht bank lieth so that we can descend into the
next pit, we shall escape the imagined chase."

Not yet had he finished reporting this design,
when I saw them coming with sj)read wings, not
very far off, with will to take us. My Leader on
a sudden took me, as a mother who is wakened by
the noise, and near her sees the kindled flames,
who takes her son and flies, and, having more care
of him than of herself, stays not so long as only to
put on a shift. And down from the ridge of the
hard bank, supine he gave himself to the sloping
rock that closes one of the sides of the next pit.
Never ran water so swiftly through a duct, to turn

1 A mirror.

CANTO XX III. 123

the wheel of a land-mill, when it approaches near-
est to the paddles, as my Master over that border,
bearing me along upon his breast, as his own son,
and not as his companion. Hardly had his feet
reached the bed of the depth below, when they
were on the ridge right over us ; but here there
was no fear, for the high Providence that willed to
set them as ministers of the fifth ditch deprived
them all of power of departing thence.

There below we found a painted people who
were going around with very slow steps, weeping,
and in their semblance weary and vanquished.
They had cloaks, with hoods lowered before their
eyes, made of the same cut as those of the monks
in Cluny. Outwardly they are gilded, so that it
dazzles, but within all lead, and so heavy that
Frederick put them on of straw. ^ Oh mantle
wearisome for eternity !

We turned, still ever to the left hand, alono; with
them, intent on their sad plaint. But because
of the weight that tired folk came so slowly that
we had fresh company at every movement of the
haunch. Wherefore I to my Leader, " See that
thou find some one who may be known by deed or
name, and so in going move thy eyes around."

1 The leaden cloaks which the Emperor Frederick II. caused
to be put on criminals, who were then burned to death, were light
as straw in comparison with these.

124 HELL.

And one who understood the Tuscan speech cried
out behind us, '' Stay your feet, ye who run thus
through the dusky air ; perchance thou shalt have
from me that which thou askest." Whereon the
Leader turned and said, " Await, and then accord-
ing to his pace proceed." I stopped, and saw two
show, by their look, great haste of mind to be with
me, but their load delayed them, and the narrow
way.

When they had come up, somewhile, with eye
askance,^ they gazed at me without a word ; then
they turned to each other, and said one to the
other, " This one seems alive by the action of his
throat ; and if they are dead, by what privilege do
they go uncovered by the heavy stole ? " Then
they said to me, '^ O Tuscan, who to the college of
the wretched hypocrites art come, disdain not to tell
who thou art." And I to them, " I was born and
grew up on the fair river of Arno, at the great town,
and I am in the body that I have always had. But
ye, who are ye, in whom such woe distills, as I see,
down your cheeks ? and what punishment is on you
that so sparkles?" And one of them rej)lied to
me, " The orange hoods are of lead so thick that
the weights thus make their scales to creak. Jo-
vial Friars ^ were we, and Bolognese ; I Catalano,

^ They could not raise their heads for a straight look.

^ Brothers of the order of Santa Maria, established in 1261,

CANTO XX III. 125

and he Loderingo named, and together taken by thy
city, as one man alone is wont to be taken, in order
to preserve its peace ; and we were such as still is
apparent round about the Gardingo." I began,
" O Friars, your evil " — but more I said not, for
there struck mine eyes one crucified with three
stakes on the ground. When me he saw he writhed
all over, blowing into his beard with sighs : and
the Friar Catalano, who observed it, said to me,
" That transfixed one, whom thou lookest at, coun-
seled the Pharisees that it was expedient to put one
man to torture for the people. Crosswise and
naked is he on the path, as thou seest, and he first
must feel how much whoever passes weighs. And
in such fashion his father-in-law is stretched in
this ditch, and the others of that Council which

■with knightly vows and high intent. From their free life the
name of "Jovial Friars " was given to the members of the order.
After the battle of Montaperti (1260) the Ghibellines held the
upper hand in Florence for more than five years. The defeat and
death of Manfred early in 1266, at the battle of Benevento, shook
their power and revived the hopes of the Guelphs. As a measure
of compromise, the Florentine Commune elected two podestks,
one from each party ; the Guelph was Catalano de' Malavolti, the
Ghibelline, Loderingo degli Andalo, both from Bologna. They
were believed to have joined hands for their own gain, and to have
favored the reviving power of the Guelphs. In the troubles of
the year the houses of the Uberti, a powerful Ghibelline family,
were burned. They lay in the region of the city called the Gaiv
dingo, close to the Palazzo Vecchio.

126 HELL.

for the Jews was seed of ill." ^ Then I saw Virgil
marvelliiiir over him that was exteiided on a cross
so vilely in eternal exile. Thereafter he addressed
this speech to the Friar, " May it not displease thee,
so it be allowed thee, to tell us if on the right hand
lies any opening whereby we two can go out with-
out constraining any of the Black Angels to come
to deliver us from this deep." He answered then,
" Nearer than thou hopest is a rock that from the
great encircling wall proceeds and crosses all the
savage valleys, save that at this one it is broken,
and does not cover it. Ye can mount up over the
ruin that slopes on the side, and heaps up at the
bottom." The Leader stood a little while with
bowed head, then said, '' 111 he reported the matter,
he who hooks the sinners yonder." ^ And the
Friar, " I once heard tell at Bologna vices enough
of the devil, among which I heard that he is false,
and the father of lies." Then the Leader with
great steps went on, disturbed a little with anger in
his look ; whereon I departed from the heavily
burdened ones, following the prints of the beloved
feet.

1 Annas "was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high
priest that same year. Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel
to the Jews, tliat it was expedient that one man should die for the
people," John xviii. 13-14 ; id. xi. 47-50.

2 Malacoda had told him that he would find a bridge not far
off by which to cross this sixth bolgia-

CANTO XXIV.

Eig-litli Circle. The poets climb from the sixth pit. —
Seventh pit, filled with serpents, by which thieves are tor-
mented.— VanuiFucci. — Prophecy of calamity to Dante.

In tliat part of the young year when the sun tem-
pers his locks beneath Aquarius,^ and now the nights
decrease toward half the day ,2 when the hoar frost
copies on the ground the image of her white sister,^
but the point of her pen lasts little while, the rustic,
whose provision fails, gets up and sees the plain all
whitened o'er, whereat he strikes his thigh, returns
indoors, and grumbles here and there, like the poor
wretch who knows not what to do ; again goes out
and picks up hope again, seeing the world to have
chansfed face in short while, and takes his crook
and drives forth his flock to pasture : in like man-
ner the Master made me dismayed, when I saw his
front so disturbed, and in like manner speedily ar-
rived the plaster for the hurt. For when we came

^ Toward the end of winter.

2 Half of the twenty-four hours.

3 The frost copies the look of the snow, but her pen soon loses
its cut, that is, the white frost soon vanishes.

128 HELL.

to the ruined bridge, tlie Leader turned to me with
that sweet look which I first saw at the foot of the
niount.^ He opened his arms, after some counsel
taken with himself, looking first well at the ruin,
and laid hold of me. And as one who acts and con-
siders, who seems always to be ready beforehand,
so lifting me up toward the top of a great rock, he
took note of another splinter, saying, " Seize hold
next on that, but try first if it is such that it may
support thee." It was no way for one clothed in a
cloak, for we with difficulty, he light and I pushed
up, could mount from jag to jag. And had it not
been that on that precinct the bank was shorter
than on the other side, I do not know about him,
but I should have been completely overcome. But
because all Malebolge slopes toward the opening of
the lowest abyss, the site of each valley is such that
one side rises and the other sinks.^ We came,
however, at length, up to the point where the last
stone is broken off. The breath was so milked
from my lungs when I was up that I could no
farther, but sat me down on first arrival.

"Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,"
said the Master, " for, sitting upon down or under

1 The hill of the first Canto, at the foot of which Virgil had
appeared to Dante.

2 The level of the whole circle slopes toward the central deep,
so that the inner side of each pit is of less height than the outer.

CANTO XXIV. 129

quilt, one attains not fame, without which he who
consumes his life leaves of himself such trace on
earth as smoke in air, or in water the foam. And
therefore rise up, conquer the exhaustion with the
spirit that conquers every battle, if by its heavy
body it be not dragged down. A longer stairway
needs must be ascended; it is not enough from
these to have departed ; if thou understandest me,
now act so that it avail thee." Then I rose up,
showing myself furnished better with breath than
I felt, and said, " Go on, for I am strong and reso-
lute."

Up along the crag we took the way, which was
rugged, narrow, and difficult, and far steeper than
the one before. I was going along speaking in
order not to seem breathless, and a voice, unsuit-
able for forming words, came out from the next
ditch. I know not what it said, though I was
already upon the back of the arch that crosses here ;
but he who was speaking seemed moved to anger.
I had turned downwards, but living eyes could not
go to the bottom, because of the obscurity. Where-
fore I said, " Master, see that thou go on to the
next girth, and let us descend the wall, for as from
hence I hear and do not understand, so I look down
and shape out nothing." "Other reply," he said,
" I give thee not than doing, for an honest request
ought to be followed by the deed in silence."

130 HELL.

We clescended the bridge at its head, where it
joins on with the eighth bank, and then the pit
was apparent to me. And I saw therewithin a
terrible heap of serpents, and of such hideous look
that the memory still curdles my blood. Let Libya
with her sand vaunt herself no more ; for though
she brings forth chelydri, jaculi, and phareae, and
cenchri with amphisboena, she never, with all Ethi-
opia, nor with the land that lies on the Red Sea,
showed either so many plagues or so evil.

Amid this cruel and most dismal store were run-
ning people naked and in terror, without hope of
hole or heliotrope.^ They had their hands tied be-
hind with serpents, which fixed through the reins
their tail and their head, and were knotted up in
front.

And lo ! at one, who was on our side, darted a
serpent that transfixed him there where the neck is
knotted t(j^ the shoulders. Nor O nor /was ever so
quickly written as he took fire and burned, and all
ashes it behoved him to become in falling. And
when upon the ground he lay thus destroyed, the
dust drew together of itself, and into that same
one instantly returned. Thus by the great sages
it is affirmed that the Phoenix dies, and then is
reborn when to her five hundredth year she draws

^ A precious stone, of green color, spotted with red, supposed
to make its wearer invisible.

CANTO XXIV. 131

nigh. Nor herb nor grain she feeds on in her life,
but only on tears of incense and on balsam, and
nard and myrrh are her last winding-sheet.

And as he who falls and knows not how, by force
of demon that drags him to gTound, or of other
attack that seizeth the man ; when he arises and
around him gazes, all bewildered by the great an-
guish that he has suffered, and in looking sighs,
such w^as that sinner after he had risen. Oh power
of God ! how just thou art that showerest down
such blows for vengeance !

The Leader asked him then who he was ; whereon
he answered, " I rained from Tuscany short time
ago into this fell gullet. Bestial life, and not hu-
man, pleased me, like a mule that I was. I am
Vanni Fucci, beast, and Pistoia was my fitting
den." And I to my Leader, " Tell him not to
budge, and ask what sin thrust him down here,
for I have seen him a man of blood an(^ raaes."
And the sinner who heard dissembled not, but
directed toward me his mind and his face, and
was painted with dismal shame. Then he said,
" More it grieves me, that thou hast caught me
in the misery where thou seest me, than when I
was taken from the other life. I cannot refuse
that w^hich thou demandest. I am put so far down
because I was robber of the sacristy with the fair
furnishings, and falsely hitherto has it been as-

132 HELL.

cribed to another.^ But that thou enjoy not this
siofht, if ever thou shalt be forth of these dark
places, open thine ears to my announcement and
hear.2 Pistoia first strips itself of the Black, then
Florence renovates her people and her customs.
Mars draws a flame from Val di Magra wrapped
in turbid clouds, and with impetuous and bitter
storm shall it be opposed upon Campo Piceno,
where it shall suddenly rend the mist, so that every
White shall thereby be smitten. And this have I
said because it must grieve thee.'*

1 Vanni Fucci robbed the rich sacristy of the Church of St.
James, the cathedral of Pistoia. Suspicion of the crime fell upon
others, who, though innocent, were put to torture and hung for it.

2 The following verses refer under their dark imagery to the
two parties, the Black and the White, introduced from Pistoia, by
which Florence was divided in the early years of the fourteenth
century, and to their fightings. The prophecy is dismal to Dante,
because it was with the Whites, whose overthrow Vanni Fucci
foretells, that his own fortunes were linked.

CANTO XXV.

Eighth Circle : seventh pit : fraudulent thieves. — Cacus.
— Agnel Brunelleschi and others.

At the end of his words the thief raised his
hands with both the figs,i crying, "Take that,
God ! for at Thee I square them." Thenceforth
the serpents were my friends, for then one coiled
around his neck, as if it said, " I will not that thou
say more," and another round his arms and bound
them up anew, clinching itself so in front that he
could not giv3 a shake with them. Ah Pistoia!
Pistoia ! why dost thou not decree to make ashes
of thyself, so that thou may last no longer, since
in evil - doing thou surpassest thine own seed ? ^
Throuo-h all the dark circles of Hell I saw no
spirit against God so proud, not he who fell at
Thebes down from the walls.^ He fled away and
spake no word more.

And I saw a Centaur full of rage come crying

1 A vulgar mode of contemptuous defiance, thrusting out the
fist with the thumb between the first and middle finger.

- According to tradition, Pistoia was settled by the followers
of Catiline who escaped after his defeat.

^ Capaneus ; see Canto xiv.

134 ' HELL.

out, " Where is, where is that obdurate one ? " I
do not think Maremma has so many snakes as he
had upon his croup up to where our semblance
begins. On his shouklers behind the nape a
dragon with open wings was lying upon him, and
it sets on fire whomsoever it encounters. My Mas-
ter said, " This is Cacus, who beneath the rock of
Mount Aventine made oftentimes a lake of blood.
He goes not on one road with his brothers because
of the fraudulent theft he committed of the great
herd that was in his neighborhood ; wherefor his
crooked deeds ceased under the club of Hercules,
who perhaps dealt him a hundred blows with it,
and he felt not ten."

While he was so speaking, and that one had run
by, lo ! three spirits came below us, of whom nei-
ther I nor my Leader was aware till when they
cried out, " Who are ye ? " whereon our story
stopped, and we then attended only unto them. I
did not recognize them, but it happened, as it is
wont to happen by chance, that one must needs
name the other, saying, " Cianfa, where can he
have stayed?" Whereupon I, in order that the
Leader should attend, put my finger uj^ward from
my chin to my nose.

If thou art now. Reader, slow to credit that which
I shall tell, it will not be a marvel, for I who saw it
hardly admit it to myself. As I was holding my

CANTO XXV. 135

brow raised upon them, lo ! a serpent with six feet
darts in front of one, and grapples close to him.
With his middle feet he clasped his paunch, and
with his forward took his arms, then struck his
fangs in one and the other cheeji. His hinder feet
he stretched upon the thighs, and put his tail be-
tween the two, and behind bent it up along the
reins. Ivy was never so bearded to a tree, as
the horrible beast through the other's limbs en-
twined his own. Then they stuck together as if
they had been of hot wax, and mingled their color ;
nor one nor tlie other seemed now that which it
was ; even as before the flame, up along the paper
a dark color proceeds which is not yet black, and
the white dies away. The other two were looking
on, and each cried, '' O me ! Agnello, how thou
changest ! Lo, now thou art neither two nor one ! "
Now were the two heads become one, when there
appeared to us two countenances mixed in one face
wherein the two were lost. Of four i strips the
two arms were made ; the thighs with the legs,
the belly and the chest became members that w^ere
never seen before. Each original aspect there was
cancelled ; both and neither the perverse image
appeared, and such it went away with slow step.
As the lizard under the great scourge of the dog-

1 The two fore feet of the drag-on and the two arms of the man
were melted into two strang-e arms.

136 HELL.

days, changing from hedge to hedge, seems a flash,
if it crosses the way, so seemed, coming toward the
belly of the two others, a little fiery serpent, livid,
and black as a grain of pepper. And that part
whereby our nourishment is first taken it transfixed
in one of them, then fell down stretched out before
him. The transfixed one gazed at it, but said
nothing ; nay rather, with feet fixed, he yawned
even as if sleep or fever had assailed him. He
looked at the serpent, and that at him ; one through
his wound, the other through his mouth, smoked
violently, and their smoke met. Let Lucan hence-
forth be silent, where he tells of the wretched Sa-
bellus, and of Nasidius, and wait to hear that which
now is uttered. Let Ovid be silent concerning
Cadmus and Arethusa, for if, poetizing, he converts
him into a serpent and her into a fountain, I envy
him not ; for two natures front to front never did
he transmute, so that both the forms were prompt
to exchange their matter. To one another they re-
sponded by such rules, that the serj^ent made his
tail into a fork, and the wounded one drew together
his feet. The legs and the very thighs with them
so stuck together, that in short while the juncture
made no sign that was apparent. The cleft tail
took on the shape that was lost there, and its skin
became soft, and that of the other hard. I saw
the arms draw in through the armpits, and the two

CANTO XXV. 137

feet of the beast which were short lengthen out in
proportion as those shortened. Then the hinder
feet, twisted together, became the member that
man conceals, and the wretched one from his had
two 1 stretched forth.

While the smoke is veiling both with a new
color, and generates hair on the one, and from
the other strips it, one rose up, and the other
fell down, not however turning aside their piti-
less lights,^ beneath which each was changing his
visage. He who was erect drew his in toward the
temples, and, from the excess of material that came
in there, issued the ears on the smooth cheeks ;
that which did not run backwards but was retained,
of its superfluity made a nose for the face, and
thickened the lips so far as was needful. He who
was lying down drives his muzzle forward, and
draws in his ears through his skull, as the snail
doth his horns. And his tongue, which erst was
united and fit for speech, cleaves itself, and the
forked one of the other closes up ; and the smoke
stops. The soul that had become a brute fled hiss-
ing along the valley, and behind him the other
speaking spits. Then he turned upon him his new
shoulders, and said to the other,^ "I will that

^ Hinder feet.

2 Glaring steadily at each other.

3 The third of the three spirits, the only one unchanged.

138 HELL.

Buoso^ run, as I have done, groveling along this
path."

Thus I saw the seventh ballast ^ change and re-
change, and here let the novelty be my excuse, if
my pen straggle ^ a little. And although my eyes
were somewhat confused, and my mind bewildered,
those could not flee away so covertly but that I
clearly distinguished Puccio Sciancato, and he it
was who alone, of the three companions that had
first come, was not changed ; the other ^ was he
whom thou, Gaville, weepest.

^ Buoso is he who has become a snake.

2 The ballast, — the sinners in the seventh bolgia.

^ Run into unusual detail.

* One Francesco Guercio de' Cavalcanti, who was slain by men
of the little Florentine town of Gaville, and for whose death
cruel vengeance was taken. The three who had first come were
the three Florentine thieves, Agnello, Buoso, and Puccio. Cianfa
Donati had then appeared as the serpent with six feet, and had
been incorporated with Ag-nello. Lastly came Guercio Cavalcanti
as a little snake, and changed form with Buoso.

CANTO XXVI.

Eighth Circle : eighth pit : fraudulent counselors. —
Ulysses and Diomed.

Rejoice, Florence, since thou art so great that
over sea and land thou beatest thy wings, and thy
name is spread through Hell. Among the thieves
I found five such, thy citizens, whereat shame comes
to me, and thou unto great honor risest not thereby.
But, if near the morning one dreams the truth, thou
shalt feel within little time what Prato, as well as
others, craves for thee.^ And if now it were, it
would not be too soon. Would that it were so !
since surely it must be ; for the more it will weigh
on me the more I aae.

We departed thence, and up along the stairs that
the bourns ^ had made for our descent before, my
Leader remounted and dragged me. And pursuing
the solitary way mid the splinters and rocks of the
crag, the foot without the hand sped not. Then I
grieved, and now I grieve again when I direct my
mmd to what I saw ; and I curb my genius more

1 If that which I foresee is not a vain dream, the calamities
which thine enemies crave for thee will soon be felt.
"^ The projections of the rocky wall.

140 HELL.

than I am wont, that it may not run unless virtue
guide it ; so that if a good star, or better thing, has
given me of good, I may not grudge it to myself.

As the rustic who rests him on the hill in the
season when he that brightens the world keepeth
his face least hidden from us, what time the fly
yieldeth to the gnat,^ sees many fireflies down in the
valley, perhaps there where he makes his vintage
and ploughs, — with as many flames all the eighth
pit was resplendent, as I perceived soon as I was
there where the bottom became apparent. And as
he ^ who was avenged by the bears saw the chariot
of Elijah at its departure, when the horses rose
erect to heaven, and could not so follow it with his
eyes as to see aught save the flame alone, even as
a little cloud, mounting upward : thus each^ was
moving through the guUey of the ditch, for not
one shows its theft, and every flame steals away a
sinner.^

I was standing on the bridge, risen up to look,
so that if I had not taken hold of a rock I should
have fallen below without being pushed. And the
Leader, who saw me thus attent, said, " Within
these fires are the spirits ; each is swathed by that

^ That is, in the sumnjer twilight.

2 Elisha. 2 Kings ii. 9-24.

^ Of those flames.

* Within each flame a sinner was concealed.

CANTO XXVI. 141

wherewith he is enkindled." " My Master," I re-
plied, " by hearing thee am I more certain, but
already I deemed that it was so, and already I
wished to say to thee. Who is in that fire that
Cometh so divided at its top that it seems to rise
from the pyre on which Eteocles was put with his
brother ? " ^ He answered me, " There within are
tormented Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together
they go in punishment, as of old in wrath.^ And
within their flame they groan for the ambush of
the horse that made the gate, whence the gentle
seed of the Romans issued forth. Within it they
lament for the artifice whereby the dead Deidamia
still mourns for Achilles, and there for the Palla-
dium they bear the penalty." ^ " If they can speak
within those sparkles," said I, "Master, much I

1 Eteocles and Polynices, sons of (Edipus and Jocaste, who, con-
tending- at the siege of Thebes, slew each other. Such was their
mutual hate that, when their bodies were burned on the same
funeral pile, the flames divided in two.

— exundant diviso vertice flammae
Alternosque apices abrupta luce coruscant.

Statius, Thebaid, xii. 431-2.

2 Against the Trojans.

3 It was through the stratagem of the wooden horse that Troy-
was destroyed, and ^neas thus compelled to lead forth his fol-
lowers who became the seed of the Romans. Deidamia was the
wife of Achilles, who slew herself for grief at his desertion and
departure for Troy, which had been brought about by the deceit
of Ulysses and Diomed. The Palladium was the statue of Athena,
on which the safety of Troy depended, stolen by the two heroes.

142 HELL.

pray thee, and repray that the prayer avail a
thousand, that thou make not to me denial of
waiting till the horned flame come hither ; thou
seest that with desire I bend me toward it." And
he to me, " Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,
and therefore I accept it, but take heed that thy
tongue restrain itself. Leave speech to me, for I
have conceived what thou wishest, for, because they
ara Greeks, they would be shy, perchance, of thy
words." ^

When the flame had come there where it seemed
to my Leader time and place, in this form I heard
him speak to it : " O ye who are two within one
fire, if I deserved of you while I lived, if I deserved
of you much or little, when in the world I wrote the
lofty verses, move not, but let one of you tell us,
where, having lost himself, he went away to die."
The greater horn of the ancient flame began to
waver, murmuring, even as a flame that the wind
wearies. Then moving its tip hither and thither,
as it had been the tongue that would speak, it cast
forth a voice, and said, —

" When I departed from Circe, who had retained
me more than a year there near to Gaeta, before
^neas had so named it, neither fondness for my
son, nor piety for my old father, nor the due

^ The ancient heroes might be averse to talking with a man
of the strange modern world.

CANTO XXVI. 143

love that should have made Penelope glad, could
overcome within me the ardor that I had to ffain
experience of the world, and of the vices of men,
and of their valor. But I put forth on the deep,
open sea, with one vessel only, and with that little
company by which I had not been deserted. One
shore and the other ^ I saw as far as Spain, far as
Morocco and the island of Sardinia, and the rest
which that sea bathes round about. I and my com-
panions were old and slow when we came to that
narrow strait where Hercules set up his bounds, to
the end that man may not put out beyond.^ On
the right hand I left Seville, on the other already
I had left Ceuta. ' O brothers,' said I, ' who
through a hundred thousand perils have reached
the West, to this so little vigil of your senses that
remains be ye unwilling to deny the experience,
following the sun, of the world that hath no people.
Consider ye your origin ; ye were not made to live
as brutes, but for pursuit of virtue and of know-
ledge.' With this little speech I made my compan-
ions so eager for the road that hardly afterwards
could I have held them back. And turning our
stern to the morning, with our oars we made wings
for the mad flight, always gaining on the left hand

^ Of the Mediterranean.

2 Piu oltre non; the famous Neplus ultra, adopted as his motto
by Charles V.

144 HELL.

side. The ni^ht saw now all the stars of the other
pole, and ours so low that it rose not forth from
the ocean floor. Five times rekindled and as many
quenched was the light beneath the moon, since we
had entered on the deep pass, when there appeared
to us a mountain dim through the distance, and it
appeared to me so high as I had not seen any.
We rejoiced thereat, and soon it turned to lamen-
tation, for from the strange land a whirlwind rose,
and struck the fore part of the vessel. Three times
it made her whirl with all the waters, the fourth
it made her stern lift up, and the prow go down,
as pleased Another, till the sea had closed over

us."

CANTO XXVII.

Eighth Circle : eighth pit : fraudulent counselors. —
Guido da Montefeltro.

Now was tlie flame erect and quiet, through
not speaking more, and now was going from us,
with the permission of the sweet poet, when an-
other that was coming behind it made us turn our
eyes to its tip, by a confused sound that issued
forth therefrom. As the Sicilian bull ^ — that bel-
lowed first with the plaint of him (and that was
right) who had shaped it with his file — was wont
to bellow with the voice of the sufferer, so that, al-
though it was of brass, yet it appeared transfixed
with pain, thus, through not at first having way
or outlet from the fire, the disconsolate words were
converted into its language. But when they had
taken their course u]) through the point, giving it
that vibration which the tongue had given in their
passage, we heard say, " O thou, to whom I direct

^ The hrazen bull of Phalaris, tyrant of Agrig-entum. made to
hold criminals to be burned within it. Perillus, its inventor, was
the first to suffer. So these sinners are wrapped in the flames
which their fraudulent counsels had prepared for them.

146 HELL.

my voice, thou that wast just speaking Lombard,^
saying, ' Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,'
although I may have arrived perchance somewhat
late, let it not irk thee to stop to speak with me,
behold, it irks not me, and I am burning. If thou
but now into this blind world art fallen from that
sweet Latian land whence I bring all my sin, tell
me if the Romagnuoli have peace or war ; for I was
from the mountains there between Urbino and the
chain from which Tiber is unlocked." ^

I was still downward attent and leaning over
when my Leader touched me on the side, saying,
" Sj^eak thou, this is a Latian." And I, who even
now had my answer ready, without delay began
to speak, '^ O soul, that art hidden there below, thy
Komagna is not, and never was, without war in the
hearts of her tyrants, but open war none have I
left there now. Ravenna is as it hath been for
many years; the eagle of Polenta^ is brooding
there, so that he covers Cervia with his wings.

^ Lombard, because the words were those o£ Virgil, whose
*' parents were Lombards," and in speaking he had used a form
peculiar to the Lombard dialect.

^ It is the spirit of the Ghibelline count, Guido da Montefeltro,
a famous freebooting captain, who speaks.

^ Guido Novello da Polenta had been lord of Ravenna since
1275. He was father of Francesca da Rimini, and a friend of
Dante. His shield bore an eagle, gules, on a field, or. Cervia is
a small town on the coast, not far from Ravenna.

CANTO XXVII. 147

The city ^ that made erewhile the long struggle, and
of the French a bloody heap, finds itself again
beneath the green paws. And the old mastiff and
the new of Verrucchio,^ who made the ill disposal
of Montagna, make an auger of their teeth there
where they are wont. The little lion of the white
lair ^ governs the city of Lamone and of Santerno,
and changes side from summer to winter. And
she* whose flank the Savio bathes, even as she sits
between the plain and the mountain, lives between
tyranny and a free state. Now who thou art, I
pray thee that thou tell us ; be not harder than
another hath been,^ so may thy name in the world
hold front."

After the fire had somewhat roared according to
its fashion, the sharp point moved this way and

^ Forli, where in 12S2 Guido da Montefeltro had defeated, with
great slaughter, a troop, largely of French soldiers, sent against
him by Pope Martin III. It was now ruled by the Ordelaffi,
whose shield, party per fess, bore on its upper half, or, a demi-
lion, vert.

2 Malatesta, father and son, rulers of Rimini ; father and bro-
ther of the husband and of the lover of Francesea da Rimini.
They had cruelly put to death Montagna di Pareitade, the head
of the Ghibellines of Rimini ; and they ruled as tyrants, sucking
the blood of their subjects.

^ This is Maghinardo da Susinana, who bore a lion azure on a
field argent.

* The city of Cesena.

^ Refuse not to answer me as I have answered thee.

/

/

148 HELL.

that, and then gave forth this breath : " If I could
believe that my answer might be to a person who
should ever return unto the world, this flame would
stand without more quiverings ; but inasmuch as,
if I hear truth, never from this depth did any liv-
ing man return, without fear of infamy I answer
thee.

" I was a man of arms, and then became a
cordelier, trusting, thus girt, to make amends ; and
surely my trust had been fulfilled but for the Great
Priest,! whom may ill betide ! who set me back into
my first sins ; and how and wherefore, I will that
thou hear from me. While I was that form of
bone and flesh that my mother gave me, my works
were not leonine, but of the fox. The waly 23rac-
tices, and the covert ways, I knew them all, and I
so plied their art that to the earth's end the sound
went forth. When I saw me arrived at that part
of my age where every one ought to strike the sails
and to coil up the ropes, what erst was pleasing to
me then gave me pain, and I yielded me repentant
and confessed. Alas me wretched ! and it would
have availed. The Prince of the new Pharisees
having war near the Lateran,^ — and not wdth Sar-
acens nor with Jews, for every enemy of his was
Christian, and none of them had been to conquer

1 Boniface VIII.

2 With the Colonna family, whose stronghold was Palestrina.

CANTO XXVII. 149

Acre,i nor a trafficker in the land of the Soldan,
— regarded in himself neither his supreme office,
nor the holy orders, nor in me that cord which is
wont to make those girt with it more lean ; but as
Constantine besought Sylvester within Soracte to
cure his leprosy ,2 so this one besought me as master
to cure his proud fever. He asked counsel of me,
and I kept silence, because his words seemed
drunken. And then he said to me, ' Let not thy
heart mistrust ; from now I absolve thee, and
do thou teach me to act so that I may throw
Palestrina to the ground. Heaven can I lock and
imlock, as thou knowest ; for two are the keys
that my predecessor held not dear.'^ Then his
grave arguments pushed me to where silence
seemed to me the worst, and I said, ' Father, since
thou washest me of that sin wherein I now must
fall, long promise with short keeping will make
thee triumph on the High Seat.' Francis * came
for me afterwards, when I was dead, but one of the
Black Cherubim said to him, ' Bear him not away ;
do me not wrong ; he must come down among my

1 Not one had been a renegade, to help the Saracens at the sieg-e
of Acre in 1291.

'■^ It was for this service that Constantine was supposed to have
made Sylvester " the first rich Father." See Canto xiv.

3 His predecessor, Celestine V., had renounced the papacy.

* St. Francis came for his soul, as that of one of the brethren
of his Order.

150 HELL.

drudges because lie gave the fraudulent counsel,
since wliicli till now I have been at his hair;
for he who repents not cannot be absolved, nor
can repentance and will exist together, because of
the contradiction that allows it not.' O woeful
me ! how I shuddered when he took me, saying
to me, ' Perhaps thou didst not think that I was
a logician.' To Minos he bore me ; and he
twined his tail eight times round his hard back,
and, after he had bitten it in great rage, he said,
' This is one of the sinners of the thievish fire.'
Therefore I, where thou seest, am lost, and going
thus robed I rankle." When he had thus com-
pleted his speech the flame, sorrowing, departed,
twisting and flapping its sharp horn.

We passed onward, I and my Leader, along the
crag, far as upon the next arch that covers the
ditch in which the fee is paid by those who, sow-
ing discord, win their burden.

CANTO XXVIII.

Eighth Circle : ninth pit : sowers of discord and schism,
— Mahomet and All. — Fra Dolcino. — Pier da Medicina. —
Curio. — Mosca. — Bertran de Born.

Who, even with words unfettered,^ could ever
tell in full of the blood and of the wounds that I
now saw, though many times narrating ? Every
tongue assuredly would come short, by reason of
our speech and our memory that have small ca-
pacity to comprise so much.

If all the people were again assembled, that of
old upon the fateful land of Apulia lamented for
their blood shed by the Trojans,^ and in the long
war that made such high spoil of the rings,'^ as
Livy writes, who erreth not ; with those that, by
resisting Robert Guiscard,^ felt the pain of blows,
and the rest whose bones are still heaped up at
Ceperano,^ where every Apulian was false, and

1 In prose.

2 The Romans, descendants of the Trojans.

^ The spoils of the battle of Cannse, in the second Punic War.

* The Norman conqueror and Duke of Apulia. He died in
1085.

^ Where, in 1266, the leaders of the army of Manfred, King of
Apulia and Sicily, treacherously went over tp Charles of Anjou.

152 HELL.

there by Tagliacozzo,^ where without arms the old
Alardo conquered, — and one should show his limb
pierced through, and one his lopped off, it would
be nothing to equal the grisly mode of the ninth pit.
Truly cask, by losing mid-board or cross-piece, is
not so split open as one I saw cleft from the chin
to where the wind is broken : between his legs were
hanging his entrails, his inner parts were visible,
and the dismal sack that makes ordure of what is
swallowed. Whilst all on seeing him I fix myself,
he looked at me, and with his hands opened his
breast, saying, " Now see how I rend myself, see
how mangled is Mahomet. Ali ^ goeth before me
weeping, cleft in the face from chin to forelock ;
and all the others whom thou seest here were, when
living, sowers of scandal and of schism, and there-
fore are they so cleft. A devil is here behind, that
adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to the edge of
the sword each of this crew, when we have turned
the doleful road, because the wounds are closed
up ere one passes again before him. But thou,
who art thou, that musest on the crag, perchance
to delay going to the punishment that is adjudged

^ Here, in 1265, Conradin, the nepliew of Manfred, -was de-
feated and taken prisoner. The victory was won by a stratagem
devised by Count Alardo di Valleri.

^ Cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet, and himself the head of
a schism.

CANTO xxvni. 153

on thine own accusations ? " ^ " Nor death hath
reached him yet," replied my Master, " nor doth
sin lead him to torment him ; but, in order to give
him full experience, it behoves me, who am dead,
to lead him through Hell down here, from circle
to circle ; and this is true as that I speak to thee."

More than a hundred there were that, when they
heard him, stopped in the ditch to look at me, for-
getting the torment in their wonder.

" Now, say to Fra Dolcino,^ then, thou who per-
chance shalt shortly see the sun, if he wish not
soon to follow me here, so to arm hiuiself with sup-
plies that stress of snow bring not the victory to
the Novarese, which otherwise to gain would not
be easy : " — after he had lifted one foot to go on
Mahomet said to me these words, then on the
ground he stretched it to depart.

Another who had his throat pierced and his nose
cut off up under his brows, and had but one ear
only, having stopped to look in wonder with the
rest, before the rest opened his gullet, which out-
wardlv was all crimson, and said, '' O thou whom sin
condemns not, and whom of old I saw above in the

1 When the soul appears before Minos, every sin is confessed.
See Canto V.

2 A noted heretic and reformer, who for two years maintained
himself in Lombardy against the forces of the Pope, but finally,
being reduced by famine in time of snow, in 1307, was taken cap-
tive and burnt at Novara.

154 HELL.

Latian land, if too great resemblance deceive me
not, remember Pier da Medicina ^ if ever thou re-
turn to see the sweet plain that from Vercelli slopes
to Marcabb, and make known to the two best of
Fano, to Messer Guido and likewise to Angiolello,^
that, if foresight here be not vain, they will be
cast forth from their vessel and drowned near to
the Cattolica, by treachery of a fell tyrant. Be-
tween the islands of Cyprus and Majorca Neptune
never saw so great a crime, not of the pirates, nor
of the Argolic people. That traitor who sees only
with one eye, and holds the city from sight of which
one who is here with me would fain have fasted,^
will make them come to parley with him ; then will
act so that against the wind of Focara * they will not
need or vow or prayer." And I to him, " Show
to me and declare, if thou wishest that I carry
up news of thee, who is he of the bitter sight ? " ^
Then he put his hand on the jaw of one of his
companions, and opened the mouth of him, crying,

^ Medicina is a town in the Bolognese district. Piero was a fos-
terer of discord.

2 Guido del Cassero and Ang-iolello da Cagnano, treacherously
drowned by order of the one-eyed Malatestino, lord of Rimini.

^ The city of Rimini, which Curio would wish never to have
seen.

* A high foreland near the Cattolica, between Rimini and Fano,
whence often fell dangerous squalls.

^ He to whom the sight of Rimini had been bitter.

CANTO XXVIII. 155

** This Is he, and he speaks not ; this outcast stifled
the doubt in Caesar, by affirming that the man pre-
pared always suffered harm from delay." Oh, how
dismayed, with his tongue slit in his gorge, seemed
to me Curio,^ who in speech had been so hardy !

And one who had both hands lopped off, lifting
the stumps through the murky air so that the blood
made his face foul, cried out, " Thou shalt remem-
ber Mosca,^ too, who said, alas! '^Xhing done has
an end,' which was the seed of ill for the Tuscan
people." And I added thereto, "And death to
thine own race." Whereat he, accumulating woe
on woe, went away like a person sad and dis-
tracted.

But I remained to look at the crowd, and I saw
a thing that I should be afraid, without more proof,
only to tell, were it not that conscience reassures
me, the good companion that emboldens man un-
der the hauberk of feeling himself pure. I saw

1 Curio the Tribune, banished from Rome, fled to Caesar delay-
ing to cross the Rubicon, and urged him on, with the argument,
according to Lucan, " Tolle moras, semper nocuit differre paratis.^^
Phars. i. 281.

2 In 1215 one of the Buondelmonti, plighted to a maiden of the
Amidei, broke faith, and engaged himself to a damsel of the Do-
nati. The family of the girl who had been thus slighted took
counsel how to avenge the affront, and Mosca de' Lamberti gave
the ill advice to murder the young Buondelmonte. The murder
was the beginning of long woe to Florence, and of the division
of her people into Guelphs and Ghibellines.

156 HELL.

in truth, and still I seem to see it, a trunk without
a head going along even as the others of the dismal
flock were going. And it was holding the cut-off
head by its hair, dangling in hand like a lantern.
And it gazed on us, and said, " O me ! " Of itself
it was making for itself a lamp ; and they were two
in one, and one in two. How it can be He knows
who so ordains. When it was right at the foot of
the bridge, it lifted its arm high with the whole
head, in order to approach its words to us, which
were, " Now see the dire punishment, thou that,
breathing, goest seeing the dead : see thou if any
other is great as this ! And that thou mayest carry
news of me, know that I am Bertran de Born,^ he
that gave to the young king the ill encouragements.
I made father and son rebellious to each other.
Ahithophel did not more with Absalom and with
David by his wicked goadings. Because I divided
persons so united, I bear my brain, alas ! divided
from its source which is in this trunk. Thus retal-
iation is observed in me."

1 The famous troubadour who incited the young- Prince Henry
to rebellion against his father, Henry II. of England. The prince
died in 1183.

CANTO XXIX.

Eighth Circle : ninth pit. — Geri del Bello. — Tenth pit :
falsifiers of all sorts. — Griff olino of Arezzo. — Capocchio.

The many people and the diverse wounds had so
inebriated mine eyes that they were fain to stay
for weeping. But Virgil said to me, " What art
thou still watching? why is thy sight still fixed
down there among the dismal mutilated shades?
Thou hast not done so at the other pits ; consider
if thou thinkest to count them, that the valley cir-
cles two and twenty miles ; and already the moon
is beneath our feet ; the time is little now that is
conceded to us, and other things are to be seen
than thou seest." "If thou hadst," replied I
thereupon, "attended to the reason why I was
looking perhaps thou wouldst have permitted me
yet to stay."

Meanwhile my Leader went on, and I behind
him went, already making reply, and adding,
" Within that cavern where I just now was holding
my eyes so fixedly, I think that a spirit of my
own blood weeps the sin that down there costs so
dear." Then said the Master, " Let not thy

158 HELL.

thoudit henceforth reflect on him ; attend to other
thins", and let him there remain, for I saw him at
the foot of the little bridge pointing at thee, and
threatening fiercely with his finger, and I heard
him called Geri del Bello.^ Thou wert then so
completely engaged on him who of old held Alta-
f orte 2 that thou didst not look that way till he had
departed." '' O my Leader," said I, "the violent
death which is not yet avenged for him by any who
is sharer in the shame made him indignant, where-
fore, as I deem, he went on without speaking
to me, and thereby has he made me pity him the

more."

Thus we spake far as the place on the crag
which first shows the next valley, if more light
were there, quite to the bottom. When we were
above the last cloister of Malebolge so that its lay
brothers could appear to our sight, divers lamen-
tations pierced me, that had their arrows barbed
with pity ; wherefore I covered ray ears with my
hands.

Such pain as there would be if, between July
and September, from the hospitals of Valdichiana
and of Maremma and of Sardinia ^ the sick should

1 A cousin or uncle of Dante's father, of whom little is known
but what may be inferred from Dante's words and from the place
he assigns him in Hell.

2 Bertran de Born, lord of Hautefort.

3 Unhealthy regions, noted for the prevalence of malarial fevers

m summer.

CANTO XXIX. 159

all be in one ditch together, such was there here ;
and such stench came forth therefrom, as is wont
to come from putrescent limbs. We descended
upon the last bank of the long crag, ever to the
left hand, and then my sight became more vivid
down toward the bottom, where the ministress of
the High Lord — infallible Justice — punishes the
falsifiers whom on earth she registers.

I do not think it was a greater sorrow to see the
whole people in Egina sick, when the air was so
full of pestilence that the animals, even to the little
worm, all fell dead (and afterwards the ancient
people, according as the poets hold for sure, were
restored by seed of ants), than it was to see the
spirits languishing in different heaps through that
dark valley. This one over the belly, and that over
the shoulders of another was lying, and this one,
crawling, was shifting himself along the dismal path.
Step by step we went without speech, looking at and
listening to the sick, who could not lift their persons.

I saw two seated leaning on each other, as pan
is leaned against pan to warm, spotted from head
to foot with scabs ; and never did I see currycomb
plied by a boy for whom his lord is waiting nor by
one who keeps awake unwillingly, as each often
plied the bite of his nails upon himself, because of
the great rage of his itching which has no other
relief. And the nails dragged down the scab, even

160 HELL.

as a knife the scales of bream or of other fish that
may have them larger.

'' O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thy-
self," began my Leader unto one of them, "and
who sometimes makest pincers of them, tell me if
any Latian ^ is among those who are here within :
so may thy nails suffice thee eternally for this
work." " Latians are we whom here thou seest
so defaced, both of us," replied one weeping, "but
thou, who art thou that hast asked of us ? " And
the Leader said, " I am one that descends with this
living man down from ledge to ledge, and I intend
to show Hell to him." Then their mutual sup-
port was broken ; and trembling each turned to
me, together with others that heard him by re-
bound. The good Master inclined himself wholly
toward me, saying, " Say to them what thou wilt ; "
and I began, since he was willing, " So may mem-
ory of you not steal away in the first world from
human minds, but may it live under many suns,
tell me who ye are, and of what race ; let not your
disfiguring and loathsome punishment fright you
from disclosing yourselves unto me." " I was from
Arezzo," replied one of them,^ " and Albero of Si-
ena had me put in the fire ; but that for which I
died brinsfs me not here. True it is that I said to

^ Italian.

'^ This is supposed to be one Griffolino, of whom nothing is
known but what Dante tells.

CANTO XXIX. 161

him, speaking in jest, I knew how to raise myself
through the air in flight, and he, who had vain de-
sire and little wit, wished that I should show him
the art, and only because I did not make him
Daedalus, made me be burned by one ^ that held
him as a son ; but to the last pit of the ten, for
the alchemy that I practiced in the world, Minos,
to whom it is not allowed to err, condemned me."
And I said to the Poet, " Now was ever people so
vain as the Sienese ? surely not so the French by
much." Whereon the other leprous one, who heard
me, replied to my words, " Except ^ Stricca who
knew how to make moderate expenditure, and Nic-
colo, who first invented the costly custom of the
clove ^ in the garden where such seed takes root ;
and except the brigade in which Caccia of Asciano
wasted his vineyard and his great wood, and the
Abbagliato showed his wit. But that thou mayest
know who thus seconds thee against the Sienese,
so sharpen thine eye toward me that my face may
answer well to thee, so shalt thou see that I am the
shade of Capocchio, who falsified the metals by
alchemy ; and thou shouldst recollect, if I descry
thee aright, how I was a good ape of nature."

^ The Bishop of Siena.

2 Ironical ; these youths all being members of the company
known as the brigata godereccia or spender eccia., the joyous or
spendthrift brigade.

^ The use of rich and expensive spices in cookery.

CANTO XXX.

Eighth Circle : tenth pit : falsifiers of all sorts. — Myrrha.
— Gianni Schicchi. — Master Adam. — Siuon of Troy.

At the time when Juno was wroth because of
Semele against the Theban blood, as she showed
more than once, Athamas became so insane, that
seeing his wife come laden on either hand with her
two sons, cried out, " Spread we the nets, so that I
may take the lioness and the young lions at the
pass," and then he stretched out his pitiless talons,
taking the one who was named Learchus, and
whirled him and struck him on a rock ; and she
drowned herself with her other burden. And when
Fortune turned downward the all-daring loftiness
of the Trojans, so that together with the kingdom
the king was undone, Hecuba, sad, wretched, and
captive, when she saw Polyxena dead, and woe-
ful descried her Polydorus on the sea-bank, frantic,
barked like a dog, — to such degree had grief dis-
traught her mind.

But neither the furies of Thebes, nor the Tro-
jan, were ever seen toward any one so cruel,

CANTO XXX. 163

whether in goading beasts or human limbs,i as I
saw two shades pallid and naked who, biting, were
running in the way that a boar does when from
the sty he breaks loose. One came at Capocchio,
and on the nape of his neck struck his teeth, so
that dragging him he made his belly scratch along
the solid bottom. And the Aretine, ^ who re-
mained trembling, said to me, " That goblin is
Gianni Schicchi, and rabid he goes thus mal-
treating others." '^ Oh," said I to him, " so may
the other not fix his teeth on thee, let it not weary
thee to tell who it is ere it start hence." And he
to me, " That is the ancient soul of profligate
Myrrha, who became her father's lover beyond
rightful love. She came to sinning with him by
falsifying herself in another's form, even as the
other, who goes off there, undertook, in order to
gain the lady of the herd,^ to counterfeit Buoso
Donati, making a will and giving to the will due
form."

And after the two rabid ones upon whom I had

1 No mad rages were ever so merciless as those of these furious
spirits.

^ Griffolino.

3 Buoso Donati had died without making- a will, whereupon his
nephew suborned Gianni Schicchi to personate the dead man in
bed, and to dictate a will in his favor. This Gianni did, but with
a clause leaving to himself a favorite mare of Buoso's, the best in
all Tuscany.

164 HELL.

kept my eye had disappeared, I turned it to look
at the other miscreants. I saw one made in fashion
of a kite, had he but only had his groin cut off at
the i^art where man is forked. The heavy hy-
dropsy which, with the humor that it ill digests, so
unmates the members that the face corresponds not
with the belly, was making him hold his lips open
as the hectic does, who for thirst turns one toward
his chin, the other upward.

" Oh ye, who are without any punishment, and I
know not why, in the dismal world," said he to
us, '* look and attend to the misery of . Master
Adam. Living, I had enough of what I wished,
and now, alas ! I long for a drop of water. The
rivulets that from the green hills of the Casentino
descend into the Arno, making their channels cool
and soft, stand ever before me, and not in vain ; for
their image dries me up far more than the disease
which strips my face of flesh. The rigid justice
that scourges me draws occasion from the place
where I sinned to put my sighs the more in flight.
There is Romena, where I falsified the alloy stamped
with the Baptist,^ for which on earth I left my
body burned. But if here I could see the wretched
soul of Guido or of Alessandro, or of their brother,^

1 The florin which bore on the obverse the figure of John the
Baptist, the protecting saint of Florence.
^' Counts of Romena.

CANTO XXX. 165

for Fount Branda^ I would not oflve the sioht.
One of them is here within already, if the raging
shades who go around speak true. But what does
it avail me who have my limbs bound ? If I were
only yet so light that in a hundred years I could go
an inch, I should already have set out along the
path, seeking for him among this disfigured folk,
although it circles round eleven miles, and is not
less than half a mile across. Because of them
I am among such a family ; they induced me to
strike the florins that had full three carats of base
metal." And I to him, " Who are the two poor
wretches that are smoking like a wet hand in
winter, lying close to your confines on the right ? "
" Here I found them," he answered, " when I
rained down into this trough, and they have not
since given a turn, and I do not believe they will
give one to all eternity. One is the false woman
that accused Joseph, the other is the false Sinon
the Greek, from Troy ; because of their sharp fever
they throw out such great reek."

And one of them who took it ill perchance at
being named so darkly, with his fist struck him on
his stiff paunch ; it sounded as if it were a drum ;
and Master Adam struck him on the face with his
arm that did not seem less hard, saying to him,
" Though, because of my heavy limbs, moving

^ The noted fountain in Siena, or perhaps one in Romena.

166 HELL.

hence be taken from me, I have an arm free for
such need." Whereon he replied, "When thou
wast going to the fire thou hadst it not thus ready,
but so and more thou hadst it when thou wast
coining." And the h^ydropic, " Thou sayst true in
this, but thou wast not so true a witness there
where thou wast questioned of the truth at Troy."
" If I spake false, thou didst falsify the coin," said
Sinon, " and I am here for a single sin, and thou
for more than any other demon." " Remember,
perjured one, the horse," answered he who had the
puffed up paunch, " and be it ill for thee that the
whole world knows it." *' And be ill for thee the
thirst which cracks thy tongue," said the Greek,
" and the putrid water that makes thy belly thus a
hedge before thine eyes." Then the coiner, "So
y^wns thy mouth for its own harm as it is wont,
for if I am thirsty, and humor stuffs me out, thou
hast the burning, and the head that pains thee,
and to lick the mirror of Narcissus thou wouldst
not want many words of invitation."

To listen to them was I wholly fixed, when the
Master said to me, " Now then look, for it wants
but little that I quarrel with thee." When I heard
him speak to me with anger, I turned me toward
him with such shame that still it circles through
my memory. And as is he that dreams of his
harm, and, dreaming, desires to dream, so that

CANTO XXX. 167

that which is he craves as if it were not, such I
became, not being able to speak, for I desired to
excuse myself, and I was indeed excusing myself,
and did not think that I was doing it. " Less shame
doth wash away a greater fault than thine hath
been," said the Master ; *' therefore disburden thy-
self of all regret, and make reckoning that I am
always at thy side, if again it happen that fortune
find thee where people are in similar brawl; for
the wish to hear it is a base wish."

CANTO XXXL

The Giants around the Eighth Circle. — Nimrod. — Ephi-
altes. — Antaeus sets the Poets down in the Ninth Circle.

One and the same tongue first stung me, so that
it tinged both my cheeks, and then supplied the
medicine to me. Thus do I hear ^ that the lance of
Achilles and of his father was wont to be cause
first of a sad and then of a good gift.

We turned our back to the wretched valley ,2 up
along the bank that girds it round, crossing with-
out any speech. Here it was less than night and
less than day, so that my sight went little for-
ward ; but I heard a horn sounding so loud that it
would have made every thunder faint, which di-
rected my eyes, following its course counter to it,'"
wholly to one place.

^ Probably from Ovid, who more than once refers to the magic
power of the spear which had been given to Peleus by Chiron.
Shakespeare too had heard of it, and applies it, precisely as Dante
does, to one

Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,
Is able with the charge to kill and cure.

2 Henry VI. v. i.
^ The tenth and last pit.

^ My eyes went in the direction whence the sound came.

CANTO XXXI. 169

After the dolorous rout when Charlemagne lost
the holy gest, Roland sounded not so terribly.^
Shortwhile did I carry my head turned thitherward,
when it seemed to me I saw many high towers ;
whereon I, " Master, say, what city is this ? " And
he to me, " Because too far away thou peerest
through the darkness, it happens that thou dost err
in thy imagining. Thou shalt see well, if thou
arrivest there, how much the sense at distance is
deceived ; therefore somewhat more spur thyself
on." Then tenderly he took me by the hand, and
said, " Before we go further forward, in order that
the fact may seem less strange to thee, know that
they are not towers, but giants, and they are in the
abyss ^ round about the bank, from the navel down-
ward, one and all of them."

As when the mist is dissipating, the look little
by little shapes out what the vapor that thickens
the air conceals, so, as I pierced the gross and dark
air as we drew nearer and nearer to the verge, error
fled from me and fear grew upon me. For as above

1 At Roncesvalles.

RoUanz ad mis I'olifan a sa buche,
Empeint la bien, par grant vertut le sunet.
Halt sunt 11 pui et la voiz est mult lunge,
Granz xxx. livves I'oirent il respundre,
Carles I'oit e ses cumpaignes tutes.

Chanson de Roland, 1753-57.

2 The central deep of Hell, dividing the eighth circle from the
ninth, — the lowest.

170 HELL.

its circular enclosure Montereggione ^ crowns itself
with towers, so with half their body the horrible
giants, whom Jove still threatens from heaven when
he thunders, betowered the bank that surrounds
the abyss.

And I discerned now the face of one, his shoul-
ders, and his breast, and great part of his belly,
and down along his sides both his arms. Nature,
surely, when she left the art of such like creatures,
did exceeding well in taking such executers from
Mars ; and if she repent not of elephants and of
whales, he who looks subtly holds her more just
and more discreet therefor ; ^ for where the faculty
of the mind is added to evil will and to power, the
human race can make no defense against it. His
face seemed to me long and huge as the pine-cone ^
of St. Peter at Rome, and in its proportion were
his other bones ; so that the bank, which was an
apron from his middle downward, showed of him
fully so much above, that to reach to his hair three
Frieslanders ^ would have made ill vaunt. For I

^ The towers of Montereggione in ruin still crown its broken
■wall, and may be seen from the railroad not far from Siena, on
the way to Florence.

^ For no longer creating giants.

^ Of bronze, that came from the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and
in Dante's time stood in the fore-court of St. Peter's, and is now
in the Vatican gardens.

* Supposed to be tall men.

CANTO XXXL 171

saw of him thirty great palms down from the place
where one buckles his cloak.

" Raphel mai amech zahi almi^^ the fierce mouth,
to which sweeter psalms were not befitting, began
to cry. And my Leader to him, " Foolish soul !
Keep to thy horn, and with that vent thyself when
anger or other passion touches thee ; seek at thy
neck, and thou wilt find the cord that holds it tied,
O soul confused ! and see it lying athwart thy
great breast." Tlien he said to me, "He himself
accuses himself ; this is Nimrod, because of whose
evil thought the world uses not one language only.
Let us leave him, and let us not speak in vain, for
so is every language to him, as his to others, which
to no one is known."

Then turning to the left, we pursued our way,
and at a crossbow's shot we found the next, far
more fierce and larger. Who the master was for
binding him I cannot tell ; but he had his right arm
fastened behind, and the other in front, by a chain
that held him entwined from the neck downward,
so that upon his uncovered part it was wound as
far as the fifth coil. " This proud one wished to
make trial of his power against the supreme Jove,"
said my Leader, " v/herefore he has such reward ;
Ephialtes ^ is his name, and he made his great en-

1 Iphimedeia bore to Poseidon two sons, " but they were short-
lived, godlike Otus and far-famed Ephialtes whom the fruitful

172 HELL.

deavors when the giants made the Gods afraid ;
the arms which he plied he moves nevermore."

And I to him, "If it may be, I shoukl like my
eyes to have experience of the huge Briareus." ^
Whereon he answered, " Thou shalt see Antaeus
close at hand here, who sjjeaks, and is unbound,^
and will set us at the bottom of all sin. Him
whom thou wishest to see is much farther on, and
is bound and fashioned like this one, save that he
seems more ferocious in his look."

Never was earthquake so mighty that it shook a
tower as violently as Ephialtes was quick to shake
himself. Then more than ever did I fear death;
and there had been no need of more than the fright,
if I had not seen his bonds.

We then proceeded further forward, and came
to Antaeus, who full five ells, besides his head,
issued forth from the cavern. " O thou that, in

Earth notirislied to be the tallest and much the most beautiful of
mortals except renowned Orion, for at nine years old they were
nine cubits in breadth, and nine fathoms tall. They even threat-
ened the immortals, raising the din of tumultuous war on Olym-
pus, and strove to set Ossa upon Olympus and wood-clad Pelion
upon Ossa, in order to scale heaven. But Jove destroyed them
both." Odyssey, xi. 306-317.

1 " Him of the hundred hands whom the Gods call Briareus."
Iliad, i. 402.

2 Because he took no part in the war of his brethren against
the Gods. What Dante tells of him is derived from Lucan,
Pharsalia, iv. 597 sqq.

CANTO XXXI. 173

the fateful valley which made Scipio the heir of
glory when Hannibal and his followers turned their
backs, didst bring of old a thousand lions for booty,
— and it still seems credible that hadst thou been
at the high war of thy brothers, the sons of the
Earth would have conquered, — set us below, and
disdain thou not to do so, where the cold locks up
Cocytus. Make us not go to Tityus, nor to Ty-
phon ; ^ this one can give of that which here is
longed for ; ^ therefore stoop, and curl not thy
snout. He yet can restore fame to thee in the
world ; for he is living, and still expects long life,
if Grace doth not untimely call him to itself."
Thus said the Master; and he in haste stretched
out those hands, whose strong grip Hercules once
felt, and took my Leader. Virgil, when he felt
himself taken up, said to me, '' Come hither so
that I take thee." Then he made one bundle of
himself and me. As beneath its leaning side, the
Carisenda ^ seems to look when a cloud is going

^ Lucan (Phars. iv. 600), naming these giants, says they were
less strong than Antaeus; wherefore there is subtle flattery in
these words of Virgil.

2 To be remembered on earth.

^ The taller of the two famous leaning towers at Bologna. As
the cloud goes over it, the tower seems to bend to meet it. So
Coleridge in his Ode to Dejection :

And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bara,
That give away their motion to the stars.

174 HELL.

over so that the tower hangs counter to it, thus
seemed Antaeus to me that stood attent to see him
bend ; and it was a moment when I could have
wished to go by another road. But lightly on the
bottom that swallows Lucifer with Judas he set
us down ; nor, thus bent, did he there make stay,
and like a mast in a ship he raised himself.

CANTO XXXII.

Ninth Circle : traitors. First ring : Caina. — Counts of
Mangona. — Camicion de' Pazzi. — Second ring : Antenora.
— Bocca degli Abati. — Buoso da Duera. — Count Ugolino.

If I had rhymes both harsh and raucous, such
as wouki befit the dismal hole on which thrust ^
all the other rocks, I would press out the juice of
my conception more fully ; but since I have them
not, not without fear I bring myself to speak ; for
to describe the bottom of the whole universe is no
enterprise to take up in jest, nor for a tongue that
cries mamma or hahho. But may those Dames aid
my verse wdio aided Amphion to close in Thebes ;
so that from the fact the speech be not diverse.

O populace miscreant above all, that art in the
place whereof to speak is hard, better had ye been
here ^ or sheep or goats !

When we were down in the dark abyss beneath
the feet of the giant, but far lower, and I was
gazing still at the high wall, I heard say to me,
" Beware how thou steppest ; take heed thou tram-

^ Rest their weight. '^ On earth.

176 HELL.

pie not with thy soles the heads of the wretched
weary brethren," Whereat I turned, and saw be-
fore me, and under my feet, a lake which through
frost had semblance of glass and not of water.

The Danube in Austria makes not for its cur-
rent so thick a veil in winter, nor the Don yon-
der under the cold sky, as there was here ; for
if Tambernich ^ had fallen thereupon, or Pietra-
pana,^ it would not even at the edge have given a
creak. And as to croak the frog lies with muzzle
out of the water, what time ^ oft dreams the peas-
ant girl of gleaning, so, livid up to where shame
appears,* were the woeful shades within the ice,
setting their teeth to the note of the stork.^ Every
one held his face turned downward ; from the
mouth the cold, and from the eyes the sad heart
compels witness of itself among them.

When I had looked round awhile, I turned to
my feet, and saw two so close that they had the
hair of their heads mixed together. " Tell me, ye
who so press tight your breasts," said I, " who are
ye ? " And they bent their necks, and after they
had raised their faces to me, their eyes, which be-
fore were moist only within, gushed up through the

1 A mountain, the locality of which is unknown.

2 One of the Tuscan Apennines.
^ In summer.

^ Up to the face.

^ Chattering- with cold.

CANTO XXX 11. 177

lids, and the frost bound the tears between them,
and locked them up again. Clamp never girt board
to board so strongly ; wherefore they like two he-
goats butted together, such anger overcame them.

And one who had lost both his ears through the
cold, still with his face downward, said to me,
" Why dost thou so mirror thyself on us ? If thou
wouldst know who are these two, the valley whence
the Bisenzio descends belonged to their father
Albert, and to them.^ From one body they issued,
and all Caina^ thou mayst search, and thou wilt
not find shade more worthy to be fixed in ice ; not
he whose breast and shadow were broken by one
and the same blow by the hand of Arthur ; ^ not
Focaccia;^ not he who encumbers me with his
head, so that I cannot see beyond, and was named
Sassol Mascheroni : ^ if thou art Tuscan, well
knowest thou now who he was. And that thou
mayst not put me to more speech, know that I was
Camicion de' Pazzi,^ and I await Carlino that he
may exonerate me."

1 They were of the Alberti, counts of Mangona, in Tuscany,
and had killed each other.

2 The first division of this ninth and lowest circle of Hell.
^ Mordred, the traitorous son of Arthur.

^ From the crimes of Focaccia, a member of the great Cancel-
lieri family of Pistoia, began the feud of the Black and the White
factions, which long raged in Pistoia and in Florence.

^ A Florentine who murdered his nephew for an inheritance.

'^ A murderer of one of his kinsmen, whose crime was surpassed

178 HELL.

Then I saw a thousand faces made currish by
the cold, whence shuddering comes to me, and will
always come, at frozen pools.

And while we were going toward the centre ^ to
which tends every weight, and I was trembling in
the eternal shade, whether it was will, or destiny,
or fortune I know not, but, walking among the
heads, I struck my foot hard in the face of one.
Wailing he cried out to me, " Why dost thou
trample me ? If thou comest not to increase the
vengeance of Mont' Aperti, why dost thou molest
me ? " And I, " My Master, now wait here for
me, so that I may free me from a doubt by means
of this one, then thou shalt make me hasten as
much as thou wilt." The Leader stopped, and I
said to that shade who was bitterly blaspheming
still, " Who art thou that thus railest at another ? "
" Now thou, who art thou, that goest through the
Antenora," ^ he answered, '' smiting the cheeks of
others, so that if thou wert alive, it would be too
much ? " " Alive I am, and it may be dear to
thee," was my reply, "if thou demandest fame,

by that of Carlino de' Pazzi, who, in 1302, betrayed a band of the
Florentine exiles who had taken refuge in a stronghold of his in
Valdarno.

1 The centre of the earth.

2 The second division of the ninth circle ; so named after the
Trojan who, though of good repute in Homer, was charged by a
later tradition with having betrayed Troy.

CANTO XXXII. 179

that I should set thy name amid the other notes."
And he to me, " For the contrary do I long ; take
thyself hence, and give me no more trouble, for
ill thou knowest to flatter on this plain." Then
I took him by the hair of the crown, and said,
" It shall needs be that thou name thyself, or that
not a hair remain upon thee here." AVhereon he
to me, " Though thou strip me of hair, I will not
tell thee who I am, nor will I show it to thee if a
thousand times thou failest on my head."

I already had his hair twisted in my hand, and
had pulled out more than one shock, he barking,
with his eyes kept close down, when another cried
out, " What ails thee, Bocca ? ^ Is it not enough
for thee to make music with thy jaws, but thou
must bark? What devil has hold of thee?"
" Now," said I, " I would not have thee speak,
accursed traitor, for to thy shame will I carry true
news of thee." " Begone," he answered, " and
relate what thou wilt, but be not silent, if from
here within thou goest forth, of him who now had
his tongue so ready. He weeps here the money of
the French ; I saw, thou canst say, him of Duera,^

^ Bocca deg'li Abati, the most noted of Florentine traitors, -who
in the heat of the battle of Mont' Aperti, in 1260, cut off the hand
of the standard-bearer of the cavalry, so that the standard fell,
and the Guelphs of Florence, disheartened thereby, were put to
rout with frightful slaughter.

- Buoso da Duera of Cremona, who, for a bribe, let pass near

180 HELL,

there where the sinners stand cooling. Shouldst
thou be asked who else was there, thou hast at thy
side that Beccheria ^ whose gorget Florence cut.
Gianni del Soldanier ^ I think is farther on with
Ganellon ^ and Tribaldello,^ who opened Faenza
when it was sleeping."

We had now parted from him when I saw two
frozen in one hole, so that the head of one was a
hood for the other. And as bread is devoured in
hunger, so the uppermost one set his teeth upon
the other where the brain joins with the nape.
Not otherwise Tydeus gnawed for spite the temples
of Menalippus than this one did the skull and the
other parts. " O thou ! that by so bestial a sign
showest hatred against him whom thou dost eat, tell
me the wherefore," said I, " with this compact, that
if thou rightfully of him complainest, I, knowing
who ye are, and his sin, may yet recompense thee
for it in the world above, if that with which I
speak be not dried up."

Parma, without resistance, the cavalry of Charles of Anjou, led
by Gui de Montf ort to the conquest of Naples in 1265.

1 Tesauro de' Beccheria, Abbot of Vallombrosa, and Papal Le-
gate, beheaded by the Florentines in 1258, because of his treach-
erous dealings with the exiled Ghibellines.

^ A Ghibelline leader, who, after the defeat of Manfred in 1266,
plotted against his own party.

^ Ganellon, the traitor who brought about the defeat at Rpnces-
valles.

* He betrayed Faenza to the French, in 1282.

CANTO XXXIII.

Ninth circle : traitors. Second ring : Antenora. — Count
Ugolino. — Third ring : Ptoloma^a. — Brother Alberigo.
Branca d' Oria.

From his savage repast that sinner raised his
mouth, wiping it with the hair of the head that he
had spoiled behind : then he began, " Thou wiliest
that I renew a desperate grief that oppresses my
heart already only in thinking ere I speak of it.
But, if my words are to be seed that may bear
fruit of infamy for the traitor whom I gnaw, thou
shalt see me speak and weep at once. I know not
who thou art, nor by what mode thou art come
down hither, but Florentine thou seemest to me
truly when I hear thee. Thou hast to know that
I was the Count Ugolino and he the Archbishop
Ruggieri.i Now will I tell thee why I am such a

1 In July, 1288, Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donora-
tico, head of a faction of the Guelphs in Pisa, in order to deprive
Nino of Gallura, head of the opposing faction, of the lordship of
the city, treacherously joined forces with the Archbishop Ruggieri
degli Ubaldini, head of the GhibeUines, and drove Nino and his
followers from the city. The archbishop thereupon took advan-
tage of the weakening of the Guelphs and excited the populace
against Ugolino, charging him with having for a bribe restored

182 HELL.

neighbor. That by the effect of his evil thoughts,
I, trusting to him, was taken and then put to death,
there is no need to tell. But that which thou canst
not have heard, namely, how cruel was my death,
thou shalt hear, and shalt know if he hath wronged
me.

" A narrow slit in the mew, which from me has
the name of Famine, and in which others yet
must be shut up, had already shown me through its
opening many moons, when I had the bad dream
that rent for me the veil of the future.

" This one appeared to me master and lord,
chasing the wolf and his whelps upon the moun-
tain ^ for which the Pisans cannot see Lucca.
With lean, eager, and trained hounds, Gualandi
with Sismondi and with Lanfranchi ^ he had put
before him at the front. After short course, the
father and his sons seemed to me weary, and it
seemed to me I saw their flanks torn by the sharp
fangs.

to the Florentines and Lucans some of their towns of which the
Pisans had made themselves masters. He, with his followers,
attacked Count Ugolino in his house, took him prisoner, with
two of his sons and two of his grandsons, and shut them up in
the Tower of the Gualandi, where in the following March, on
the arrival of Count Guido da Montef eltro (see Canto xxvii), as
Captain of Pisa, they were starved to death.

^ Monte San Giuliano.

^ Three powerful Ghibelline families of Pisa.

CANTO XXXIII. 183

" When I awoke before the morrow, I heard my
sons, who were with me, wailing in their sleep, and
asking for bread. Truly thou art cruel if already
thou grievest not, thinking on what my heart fore-
told ; and if thou weepest not, at what art thou
wont to weep ? Now they were awake, and the hour
drew near when food was wont to be brought to us,
and because of his dream each one was apprehen-
sive. And I heard the door below of the horrible
tower locking up ; whereat I looked on the faces
of my sons without saying a word. I wept not, I
was so turned to stone within. They wept ; and
my poor little Anselm said, ' Thou lookest so,
father, what aileth thee ? ' Yet I did not weep ;
nor did I answer all that day, nor the night after,
until the next sun came out upon the world.
When a little ray entered the woeful prison,
and I discerned by their four faces my own very
aspect, both my hands I bit for woe ; and they,
thinking I did it through desire of eating, of a
sudden rose, and said, ' Father, it will be far
less pain to us if thou eat of us ; thou didst
clothe us with this wretched flesh, and do thou
strip it off.' I quieted me then, not to make them
more sad: that day and the next we all stayed
dumb. Ah, thou hard earth ! why didst thou not
open ? After we had come to the fourth day, Gaddo
threw himself stretched out at my feet, saying.

184 HELL.

' My father, why dost thou not help me ? ' Here
he died : and, even as thou seest me, I saw the
three fall one by one between the fifth day and the
sixth ; then I betook me, already blind, to groping
over each, and two days I called them after
they were dead : then fasting had more power than
grief."

When he had said this, with his eyes distorted,
he seized again the wretched skull with his teeth,
that were strong as a dog's upon the bone.

Ah Pisa ! reproach of the people of the fair
country where the si doth sound, ^ since thy neigh-
bors are slow to punish thee, let the Caprara and
Gorgona ^ move and make a hedge for Arno at its
mouth, so that it drown every person in thee ; for
if Count Ugolino had repute of having betrayed
thee in thy towns, thou oughtest not to have set
his sons on such a cross. Their young age, thou
modern Thebes ! made Uguccione and the Bri-
gata innocent, and the other two that the song-
names above.

We passed onward to where the ice roughly
en swathes another folk, not turned downward,
but all upon their backs. Their very weeping lets

1 Italy, Avhose language Dante calls il volgare di si. {Convito,
i. 10.)

^ Two little islands not far from the mouth of the Arno, on
whose banks Pisa lies.

CANTO XXXIIL 185

them not weep, and the pain that finds a barrier
on the eyes turns inward to increase the anguish ;
for the first tears form a block, and like a visor
of crystal fill all the cup beneath the eyebrow.

And although, because of the cold, as from a
callous, all feeling had left its abode in my face,
it now seemed to me I felt some wind, wherefore I,
" My Master, who moves this ? Is not every
vapor ^ quenched here below ? " Whereon he to
me, " Speedily shalt thou be where thine eye shall
make answer to thee of this, beholding the cause
that rains down the blast."

And one of the wretches of the cold crust cried
out to us, " O souls so cruel that the last station is
given to you, lift from my eyes the hard veils, so
that I may vent the grief that swells my heart, a
little ere the weeping re-congeal ! " Wherefore I
to him, " If thou wilt that I relieve thee, tell me
who thou art, and if I rid thee not, may it be
mine to go to the bottom of the ice." He replied
then, " I am friar Alberigo ; ^ I am he of the

1 Wind being- supposed to be caused by the action of the sun
on the vapors of the atmosphere.

2 Alberigo de' Manfredi, of Faenza ; one of the Jovial Friars
(see Canto xxiii). Having received a blow from one of his kins-
men, he pretended to forgive it, and invited him and his son to a
feast. Toward the end of the meal he gave a preconcerted signal
by calling out, " Bring the fruit," upon which his emissaries rushed
in and killed the two guests. The " fruit of Brother Alberigo "
became a proverb.

186 HELL.

fruits of the bad garden, and here I receive a date
for a fig." ^ " Oh ! " said I to him ; " art thou now
already dead ? " And he to me, " How it may go
with my body in the world above I bear no know-
ledge. Such vantage hath this Ptolomsea ^ that
oftentime the soul falls hither ere Atropos hath
given motion to it.^ And that thou may the more
willingly scrape the glassy tears from my face,
know that soon as the soul betrays, as I did, its
body is taken from it by a demon, who thereafter
governs it until its time be all revolved. The soul
falls headlong into this cistern, and perchance the
body of the shade that here behind me winters still
appears above ; thou oughtest to know him if thou
comest down but now. He is Ser Branca d' Oria,*
and many years have passed since he was thus shut
up." " I think," said I to him, " that thou deceiv-
est me, for Branca d' Oria is not yet dead, and he
eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes."
" In the ditch of the Malebranche above," he said,
" there where the tenacious pitch is boiling, Michel
Zanche ^ had not yet arrived when this one left

1 A fig" is the cheapest of Tuscan fruits ; the imported date is
more costly.

2 The third ring of ice, named for that Ptolemy of Jericho who
slew his father - in - law, the high - priest Simon, and his sons
(1 Maccabees xvi. 11-16).

^ That is, before its life on earth is ended.

* Murderer, in 1275, of his father-in-law, Michel Zanche.

* Already heard of in the fifth pit (Canto xxii. 88).

CAXTO XXXIII. 187

in his own stead a devil in his body, and in that of
one of his near kin, who committed the treachery
together with him. But now stretch out hither thy
hand ; open my eyes for me." And I opened them
not for him, and to be rude to him was courtesy.

Ah Genoese ! men strange to all morality and
full of all corruption, why are ye not scattered
from the world ? For with the worst spirit of Ro-
magna I found one of you such that for his deeds
in soul he is bathed in Cocytus, and in body he
seems still alive on earth.

CANTO XXXIY.

Ninth Circle : traitors. Fourth ring : Judecca. — Luci-
fer. — Judas, Brutus and Cassius. — Centre of the universe.
— Passage from Hell. — Ascent to the surface of the South-
ern Hemisphere.

" Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni} toward us ;
therefore look in front," said my Master ; " if thou
discernest him." As a mill that the wind turns
seems from afar when a thick fog breathes, or
when our hemisphere grows dark with night, such
a structure then it seemed to me I saw.

Then, because of the wind, I drew me behind
my Leader ; for there was no other shelter. I
was now, and with fear I put it in verse, there ^
where the shades were wholly covered, and showed
through like a straw in glass. Some are lying ;
some stand erect, this on his head, and that on his
soles ; another like a bow inverts his face to his
feet.

^ "The banners of the King of Hell advance." Vexilla JRegis
prodeunt are the first words of a hymn in honor of the Cioss,
sung at vespers on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
and on Monday of Holy Week.

2 In the fourth, iiuiermost ring of ice of the ninth circle, — the
Judecca.

CANTO XXXIV. 189

When we had gone so far forward that it pleased
my Master to show me the creature that had the
fair semblance, from before me he took himself
and made me stop, sajdng, "Behold Dis, and be-
hold the place where it is needful that with forti-
tude thou arm thee." How I became then chilled
and hoarse, ask it not, Eeader, for I write it not,
because all speech would be little. I did not die,
and I did not remain alive. Think now for thyself,
if thou hast grain of wit, what I became, deprived
of one and the other.

The emperor of the woeful realm from his mid-
breast issued forth from the ice ; and I match
better with a giant, than the giants do with his
arms. See now how great must be that whole
which corresponds to such' parts. If he was as
fair as he now is foul, and against his Maker lifted
up his brow, surely may all tribulation proceed
from him. Oh how great a marvel it seemed to
me, when I saw three faces on his head ! one in
front, and that was red ; the others were two
that were joined to this above the very middle of
each shoulder, and they were joined together at
the place of the crest ; and the right seemed be-
tween white and yellow, the left was such to sight
as those who come from where the Nile flows
valleyward. Beneath each came forth two great
wings, of size befitting so huge a bird. Sails of

190 HELL.

the sea never saw T such. They had no feathers,
but their fashion was of a bat ; and he was flap-
ping them so that three winds went forth from
him, whereby Cocytus was all congealed. With
six eyes he was weeping, and over three chins
trickled the tears and bloody drivel. With each
mouth he was crushing a sinner with his teeth, in
manner of a brake, so that he thus was making
three of them woeful. To the one in front the
biting was nothing to the clawing, so that some-
times his spine remained all stripped of skin.

" That soul up there which has the greatest pun-
ishment," said the Master, " is Judas Iscariot, who
has his head within, and plies his legs outside. Of
the other two who have their heads down, he who
hano's from the black muzzle is Brutus ; see how
he writhes and says no word ; and the other is Cas-
sius, who seems so large-limbed. But the night is
rising again, and now we must depart, for we have
seen the whole."

As was his pleasure, I clasped his neck, and he
took opportunity of time and place, and when the
wings were opened wide he caught hold on the
shaggy flanks ; from shag to shag he then de-
scended between the bushy hair and the frozen
crusts. When we were just where the thigh turns
on the thick of the haunch, my Leader, with effort
and stress of breath, turned his head where he

CANTO XXXIV. 191

had liis shanks, and clambered by the hair as a
man that ascends, so that I thought to return again
to hell.

" Cling fast hold," said the Master, panting like
one weary, " for by such stairs it behoves to de-
part from so much evil." Then he came forth
through the opening of a rock, and placed me
upon its edge to sit ; then stretched toward me his
cautious step.

I raised my eyes, and thought to see Lucifer
as I had left him, and I saw him holding his legs
upward. And if I then became perplexed, let the
dull folk think it that see not what that point is
that I had passed.^

" Rise up," said the Master, " on thy feet ; the
way is long and the road is difficult, and already
the sun unto mid-tierce ^ returns."

1 This point is the centre of the universe ; when Virgil had
turned upon the haunch of Lucifer, the passage had been made
from one hemisphere of the earth — the inhabited and known
hemisphere — to the other where no living men dwell, and where
the only land is the mountain of Piorgatory. In changing one
hemisphere for the other there is a change of time of twelve hours.
A second Saturday morning begins for the poets, and they pass
nearly as long a time as they have been in Hell, that is, twenty-
four hours, in traversing the long and hard way that leads through
the new hemisphere on which they have just entered.

2 Tierce is the church office sung at the third hour of the day,
and the name is given to the first three hours after sunrise. Mid-
tierce consequently here means about half -past seven o'clock. In

192 HELL.

It was no hallway of a palace where we were,

but a natural dungeon that had a bad floor, and

lack of light. " Before I tear me from the abyss,"

said I when I had risen up, " my Master, speak a

little to me to draw me out of error. Where is the

ice? and this one, how is he fixed thus upside

down? and how in such short while has the sun

from eve to morn made transit ? " And he to me,

" Thou imag-inest that thou still art on the other side

of the centre where I laid hold on the hair of the

guilty Worm that pierces the world. On that side

wast thou so long as I descended ; when I turned

thou didst pass the point to which from all parts

whatever has weight is drawn ; and thou art now

arrived beneath the hemisphere opposite to that

which the great dry land covers, and beneath whose

zenith the Man was slain who was born and lived

without sin. Thou hast thy feet upon the little

sphere which forms the other face of the Judecca.

Here it is morning when there it is evening ; and

he who made for us a stairway with his hair is still

fixed even as he was before. Upon this side he

fell down from heaven, and the earth, which before

was spread out here, through fear of him made of

the sea a veil, and came to your hemisphere ; and

Hell Dante never mentions the sun to mark division of time, but
now, having issued from Hell, Virgil m^rks the hour by a refer-
ence to the sun,

CANTO XXXIV. 193

perchance to flee from him that land ^ which on
this side appears left here this empty space and
upward ran back."

A place is there below, stretching as far from
Beelzebub as his tomb extends,^ which not by sight
is known, but by the sound of a rivulet that here
descends along the hollow of a rock that it has
gnawed with its course that winds and little falls.
My Leader and I entered through that hidden way,
to return to the bright world. And without care
to have any repose, we mounted up, he first and I
second, till through a round opening I saw of
those beauteous things which heaven bears, and
thence we came forth to see again the stars.

1 The Mount of Purgatory.

2 Hell is his tomb ; this vacant dark passage through the op-
posite hemisphere is, of course, of the same depth as Hell from
surface to centre.

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